John Sweller demolishes inquiry learning
Why learning through problem-solving is not as effective as many people think
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A new report has just been published about inquiry learning by the Centre for Independent Studies. It is written by Professor John Sweller* who is famous, although perhaps not as famous as he should be, for the development of Cognitive Load Theory.
Sweller makes the point that there are many names for approaches similar to inquiry learning - constructivist teaching, problem-based learning, discovery learning and so on - but that they all represent the same basic idea, with ‘inquiry learning’ simply being the most popular name at present.
Sweller, clearly and precisely outlines why inquiry learning is so intuitively appealing and the perceived justifications for inquiry learning. Sweller explains that whether proposed on the basis that it is a superior method of learning content or on the basis that it develops supposed generic skills, our current understanding of human cognitive architecture and the results of a large number of experiments demonstrate that these propositions are flawed.
Although the language is a little technical in places, the report is still accessible and I recommend passing it on to friends and colleagues. Maybe pass it around quietly if your school leadership are true believers.
*Sweller is one of my PhD supervisors
Ollie Lovell just interviewed Sammy Kempner, whose school showed phenomenal improvement in standardised maths scores. Kempner talks about the strategies the school uses and talks about the type of problem Sweller details in his paper - the equation, (a + b)/c = d, solve for a. Sweller uses the worked example, but Kempner uses the analogy of a balance (like many of us) and has set up activities of practice/investigation/inquiry to start the topic. Kempner says it's not inquiry but not explicit instruction either. Perhaps the analogy reduces cognitive load, then there is a bit of trial/error (which Sweller says is a biologically primary problem solving strategy). In any case, this is typically what many maths teachers would do, how does this fit with CLT? The Kempner interview - https://www.ollielovell.com/errr/sammykempner and the algebra strategy @ 54min 50 sec.
Hi Greg, in your title you write: “Why learning through problem-solving is not as effective as many people think”.
Is this consistent with the following from Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. Perhaps it is but it would be easy to get the wrong impression that problem solving is not an important part of learning. One of the most important findings from the cognitive psychology of memory is that memory is best following generative encoding.
1 Elaborative interrogation
Anyone who has spent time around young children knows that one of their most frequent utterances is “Why?” (perhaps coming in a close second behind “No!”). Humans are inquisitive creatures by nature, attuned to seeking explanations for states, actions, and events in the world around us. Fortunately, a sizable body of evidence suggests that the power of explanatory questioning can be harnessed to promote learning. Specifically, research on both elaborative interrogation and self-explanation has shown that prompting students to answer “Why?” questions can facilitate learning. These two literatures are highly related but have mostly developed independently of one another. Additionally, they have overlapping but nonidentical strengths and weaknesses. For these reasons, we consider the two literatures separately….
1.2 How general are the effects of elaborative interrogation?
1.2a Learning conditions
The seminal work by Pressley et al. (1987; see also B. S. Stein & Bransford, 1979) spawned a flurry of research in the following decade that was primarily directed at assessing the generalizability of elaborative-interrogation effects. Some of this work focused on investigating elaborative-interrogation effects under various learning conditions. Elaborative-interrogation effects have been consistently shown using either incidental or intentional learning instructions (although two studies have suggested stronger effects for incidental learning: Pressley et al., 1987; Woloshyn, Willoughby, Wood, & Pressley, 1990). Although most studies have involved individual learning, elaborative-interrogation effects have also been shown among students working in dyads or small groups (Kahl & Woloshyn, 1994; Woloshyn & Stockley, 1995).
2 Self-explanation
2.1 General description of self-explanation and why it should work
In the seminal study on self-explanation, Berry (1983) explored its effects on logical reasoning using the Wason card-selection task. In this task, a student might see four cards labeled “A,” “4,” “D,” and “3" and be asked to indicate which cards must be turned over to test the rule “if a card has A on one side, it has 3 on the other side” (an instantiation of the more general “if P, then Q” rule). Students were first asked to solve a concrete instantiation of the rule (e.g., flavor of jam on one side of a jar and the sale price on the other); accuracy was near zero. They then were provided with a minimal explanation about how to solve the “if P, then Q” rule and were given a set of concrete problems involving the use of this and other logical rules (e.g., “if P, then not Q”). For this set of concrete practice problems, one group of students was prompted to self-explain while solving each problem by stating the reasons for choosing or not choosing each card. Another group of students solved all problems in the set and only then were asked to explain how they had gone about solving the problems. Students in a control group were not prompted to self-explain at any point. Accuracy on the practice problems was 90% or better in all three groups. However, when the logical rules were instantiated in a set of abstract problems presented during a subsequent transfer test, the two self-explanation groups substantially outperformed the control group (see Fig. 2). In a second experiment, another control group was explicitly told about the logical connection between the concrete practice problems they had just solved and the forthcoming abstract problems, but they fared no better (28%).
2.2 How general are the effects of self-explanation?
2.2a Learning conditions
Several studies have manipulated other aspects of learning conditions in addition to self- explanation. For example, Rittle-Johnson (2006) found that self-explanation was effective when accompanied by either direct instruction or discovery learning. Concerning potential moderating factors, Berry (1983) included a group who self-explained after the completion of each problem rather than during problem solving. Retrospective self-explanation did enhance performance relative to no self-explanation, but the effects were not as pronounced as with concurrent self-explanation. Another moderating factor may concern the extent to which provided explanations are made available to learners. Schworm and Renkl (2006) found that self-explanation effects were significantly diminished when learners could access explanations, presumably because learners made minimal attempts to answer the explanatory prompts before consulting the provided information (see also Aleven & Koedinger, 2002).
2.2b Student characteristics