Enhancing learning through strategy instruction and group interaction: is active generation of elaborations critical?
✍ Scribed by Teena Willoughby; Eileen Wood; Catherine McDermott; Jennifer McLaren
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 118 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0888-4080
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
We examined strategic intervention when learners were actively engaged in group discussion to assess the impact of peer interaction. In addition, memory performance was compared between students who generated or evaluated elaborations when using the elaborative interrogation strategy, as well as between a supported strategy where learners were provided with explanatory elaborations and a self-study condition. Introductory psychology students (N 263) in groups of 3 to 5 members studied sixty facts about familiar and unfamiliar animals. Overall, the potency of elaborative interrogation was con®rmed regardless of whether students studied interactively or independently. The contribution of group members in facilitating knowledge when the group was able to share sophisticated strategic information also was highlighted. Most critically, when background knowledge was sucient to promote connections between existing and new material, it was the active generation of elaborations that maximized learning.