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This investigation considers the relationship between test scores and a sorting task conceptual macrostructure measure based on topic-level term-term distances as Pathfinder networks. In Study 1 (n = 255), grade 7 Chinese students completed a sorting task 1 month after the traditional in-class lessons and exam. In Study 2 (n = 220), grade 8 students completed the sorting task immediately after self-directed study of a history text. In addition, a month later 68 of the students in Study 2 were further instructed to write a short essay about this content. Study 1 results showed significant correlations between the sorting task macrostructure network measures and both lesson and unit test scores. Study 2 obtained the same significant correlations between sorting task macrostructure network measures and performance on tests. In addition, in Study 2, essay conceptual networks of historical content were better for the high prior knowledge students. Both the sorting task and the essay writing task measures can complement traditional exam measures so that conceptual knowledge structure aspects of students’ learning can be identified for formative and summative purposes.
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The influence of the conceptual structure of external representations when relearning history content
How does the conceptual structure of external representations contribute to learning? This investigation considered the influence of generative concept sorting (Study 1, n=58) and of external structure information (Study 2, n=120) moderated by perceived difficulty. In Study 1, undergraduate students completed a perceived difficulty survey and comprehension pretest, then a sorting task, and finally a comprehension posttest. Results showed that both perceived difficulty and comprehension pretest significantly predicted comprehension posttest performance. Learners who perceived that history is difficult attained significantly greater posttest scores and had more expert-like networks. In Study 2, participants completed the perceived difficulty survey and comprehension pretest, then read a text with different external structure support, either an expert network or an equivalent outline of the text, and finally completed a sorting task posttest and a comprehension posttest. In study 2, there was no significant difference for external structure support on posttest comprehension (outline = network), but reading with an outline led to a linear topic order conceptual structure of the text, while reading with a network led a more expert-like relational structure. As in Study 1, comprehension pretest and perceived difficulty significantly predicted posttest performance, but in contrast to Study 1, learners who perceived that history is easy attained significantly greater posttest scores. For theory building purposes, post-reading mental representations matched the form of the external representation used when reading. Practitioners should consider using generative sorting tasks when relearning history content.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2215807
- PAR ID:
- 10504583
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Educational technology research and development
- Volume:
- 71
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1042-1629
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 415 to 439
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- : conceptual networks conceptual change networks outlines sorting task knowledge structure
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-022-10176-y
