An official website of the United States government
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.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2026
An exploratory study of a new concept macrostructure measure when learning history in middle school
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.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2215807
- PAR ID:
- 10618788
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Nature Link
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Educational technology research and development
- ISSN:
- 1042-1629
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
This quasi-experimental investigation considers the influence of an instructor-led discussion of structural knowledge on the conceptual structure of summary essays from lesson to posttest. Undergraduate architectural engineering students, after completing the lecture portions on the topic Sustainability and Green Design, during lab time composed a 300-word summary essay using the online tool Graphical Interface of Knowledge Structure (GIKS, Authors, 2024, see Figure 1), then immediately one lab section participated in an instructor-led discussion of their group-average essay structure to note correct conceptions as well as common misconceptions, while the other two sections also wrote but did not have this discussion. Posttest essays were collected the following week. The instructor-led discussion of the networks relative to no discussion did improve posttest essay writing quality (human rater) but NOT content quality. The data indicates that the discussion altered students’ conceptual structures of the central terms in the expert network, but at the expense of peripheral, unmentioned terms. Therefore instructor-led discussion of content conceptual structure likely does influence students’ conceptual knowledge structures, and teachers and instructors must be vigilant in preparing and presenting such a discussion to make sure they appropriately and adequately cover the content.more » « less
-
This study examines the correlation of physics conceptual inventory pretest scores with post-instruction achievement measures (post-test scores, test averages, and course grades). The correlation for demographic groups in the minority in the physics classes studied (women, underrepresented racial/enthic students, first generation college students, and rural students) were compared with their majority peers. Three conceptual inventories were examined: the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) (N = 2450), the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) (N = 2373) and the CSEM (N1 = 1796, N2 = 2537). While many of the correlations were similar, for some of the demographic groups, the correlations were substantially different. There was little consistency in the differences measured. In most cases where the correlations differed, the correlation for the group in the minority was the smaller. As such, pretest scores may not predict course performance for some minority demographic groups as accurately as they predict outcomes for majority students. The pattern of correlation differences did not appear to be related to the size of the pretest score. If pretest scores are used for instructional decisions that have academic consequences, instructors should be aware of these potential inaccuracies and ensure the pretest used is equally valid for all students.more » « less
-
Sampson, Demetrious; Ifenthaler, Dirk; Isaías, Pedro (Ed.)This quasi-experimental study seeks to improve the conceptual quality of lesson summary essays by comparing two conditions, essay prompts with or without a list of concepts from the lesson. It is assumed that these terms can be used as “anchors” while writing. Participants (n = 90) in an Architectural Engineering undergraduate course over a two week period read the assigned textbook chapter and attended lectures and labs, then in the final lab session were asked to write a 300-word summary of the lesson content. Data for analysis consists of these essays and the end-of-unit multiple choice test. Compared to the expert essay benchmark, the essay networks of those receiving the list of terms in the writing prompt were not significantly different from those who did not receive the terms, but however were significantly more like peers essay networks, the network of the Chapter 11 PowerPoint lecture, and the network of the Chapter 9 PowerPoint lecture. In addition those receiving the list of terms in the writing prompt performed significantly better on the end-of-unit test than those not receiving the terms. Term frequency analysis indicates that only the most network central terms in the terms list showed a greater frequency in essays, the other terms frequencies were remarkably the same for both the Term and No Terms groups, suggesting a similar underlying conceptual mental model of this lesson content. More research is needed to understand how including concept terms in a writing prompt influences essay conceptual structure and test performance.more » « less
-
Abstract When, how, and why students use conceptual knowledge during math problem solving is not well understood. We propose that when solving routine problems, students are more likely to recruit conceptual knowledge if their procedural knowledge is weak than if it is strong, and that in this context, metacognitive processes, specifically feelings of doubt, mediate interactions between procedural and conceptual knowledge. To test these hypotheses, in two studies (Ns = 64 and 138), university students solved fraction and decimal arithmetic problems while thinking aloud; verbal protocols and written work were coded for overt uses of conceptual knowledge and displays of doubt. Consistent with the hypotheses, use of conceptual knowledge during calculation was not significantly positively associated with accuracy, but was positively associated with displays of doubt, which were negatively associated with accuracy. In Study 1, participants also explained solutions to rational arithmetic problems; using conceptual knowledge in this context was positively correlated with calculation accuracy, but only among participants who did not use conceptual knowledge during calculation, suggesting that the correlation did not reflect “online” effects of using conceptual knowledge. In Study 2, participants also completed a nonroutine problem‐solving task; displays of doubt on this task were positively associated with accuracy, suggesting that metacognitive processes play different roles when solving routine and nonroutine problems. We discuss implications of the results regarding interactions between procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and metacognitive processes in math problem solving.more » « less
