Cargando…

The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples

Prior research has established that while the use of concrete, familiar examples can provide many important benefits for learning, it is also associated with some serious disadvantages, particularly in learners’ ability to recognize and transfer their knowledge to new analogous situations. However,...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Day, Samuel B., Motz, Benjamin A., Goldstone, Robert L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4665226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26648905
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01876
_version_ 1782403550462083072
author Day, Samuel B.
Motz, Benjamin A.
Goldstone, Robert L.
author_facet Day, Samuel B.
Motz, Benjamin A.
Goldstone, Robert L.
author_sort Day, Samuel B.
collection PubMed
description Prior research has established that while the use of concrete, familiar examples can provide many important benefits for learning, it is also associated with some serious disadvantages, particularly in learners’ ability to recognize and transfer their knowledge to new analogous situations. However, it is not immediately clear whether this pattern would hold in real world educational contexts, in which the role of such examples in student engagement and ease of processing might be of enough importance to overshadow any potential negative impact. We conducted two experiments in which curriculum-relevant material was presented in natural classroom environments, first with college undergraduates and then with middle-school students. All students in each study received the same relevant content, but the degree of contextualization in these materials was varied between students. In both studies, we found that greater contextualization was associated with poorer transfer performance. We interpret these results as reflecting a greater degree of embeddedness for the knowledge acquired from richer, more concrete materials, such that the underlying principles are represented in a less abstract and generalizable form.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4665226
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2015
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-46652262015-12-08 The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples Day, Samuel B. Motz, Benjamin A. Goldstone, Robert L. Front Psychol Psychology Prior research has established that while the use of concrete, familiar examples can provide many important benefits for learning, it is also associated with some serious disadvantages, particularly in learners’ ability to recognize and transfer their knowledge to new analogous situations. However, it is not immediately clear whether this pattern would hold in real world educational contexts, in which the role of such examples in student engagement and ease of processing might be of enough importance to overshadow any potential negative impact. We conducted two experiments in which curriculum-relevant material was presented in natural classroom environments, first with college undergraduates and then with middle-school students. All students in each study received the same relevant content, but the degree of contextualization in these materials was varied between students. In both studies, we found that greater contextualization was associated with poorer transfer performance. We interpret these results as reflecting a greater degree of embeddedness for the knowledge acquired from richer, more concrete materials, such that the underlying principles are represented in a less abstract and generalizable form. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4665226/ /pubmed/26648905 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01876 Text en Copyright © 2015 Day, Motz and Goldstone. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Day, Samuel B.
Motz, Benjamin A.
Goldstone, Robert L.
The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples
title The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples
title_full The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples
title_fullStr The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples
title_full_unstemmed The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples
title_short The Cognitive Costs of Context: The Effects of Concreteness and Immersiveness in Instructional Examples
title_sort cognitive costs of context: the effects of concreteness and immersiveness in instructional examples
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4665226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26648905
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01876
work_keys_str_mv AT daysamuelb thecognitivecostsofcontexttheeffectsofconcretenessandimmersivenessininstructionalexamples
AT motzbenjamina thecognitivecostsofcontexttheeffectsofconcretenessandimmersivenessininstructionalexamples
AT goldstonerobertl thecognitivecostsofcontexttheeffectsofconcretenessandimmersivenessininstructionalexamples
AT daysamuelb cognitivecostsofcontexttheeffectsofconcretenessandimmersivenessininstructionalexamples
AT motzbenjamina cognitivecostsofcontexttheeffectsofconcretenessandimmersivenessininstructionalexamples
AT goldstonerobertl cognitivecostsofcontexttheeffectsofconcretenessandimmersivenessininstructionalexamples