Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology
Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology
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DOI：
10.1177/1529100612453266
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发表时间：
2013-01-01
影响因子：
25.4
通讯作者：
Willingham, Daniel T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Dunlosky, John;Rawson, Katherine A.;Willingham, Daniel T.
许多学生被一些人认为处于危机中的教育系统甩在了后面。改善教育结果将需要在许多方面做出努力，但这本专著的一个中心前提是，解决方案的一部分涉及帮助学生通过使用有效的学习技术更好地调节他们的学习。幸运的是，认知和教育心理学家一直在开发和评估易于使用的学习技巧，以帮助学生实现他们的学习目标。在这本专著中，我们详细讨论了10种学习技巧，并就它们的相对实用性提出了建议。我们选择的技术应该是相对容易使用的，因此可以被许多学生采用。此外，一些技巧(例如，突出显示和重读)被选择是因为学生报告严重依赖它们，这使得检查它们的效果尤为重要。这些技巧包括精心设计的询问、自我解释、总结、突出显示(或下划线)、关键字助记、用于文本学习、重读、练习测试、分布式练习和交叉练习的图像使用。为了对这些技巧的相对实用性提出建议，我们评估了它们的益处是否概括为四类变量：学习条件、学生特征、材料和标准任务。学习条件包括实施该技术的学习环境的各个方面，例如学生是单独学习还是与小组一起学习。学生的特征包括年龄、能力和先验知识水平等变量。材料从简单的概念到数学问题，再到复杂的科学文本，不一而足。标准任务包括与学生成绩相关的不同结果测量，如利用记忆、解决问题和理解。我们试图为每种技术提供彻底的评论，因此这本专著相当长。然而，我们也是以模块化的方式编写专著，所以它很容易使用。具体地说，每一篇综述分为以下几个部分：1.对该技术的一般描述以及为什么它应该起作用2。这项技术的效果有多普遍？学习条件2b。学生的特点2c.材料2d。标准任务3。在具有代表性的教育背景下的影响4.实施方面的问题5.全面评估每种技术的回顾可以独立于其他技术阅读，并且可以很容易地在不同技术之间比较感兴趣的特定变量。为了预示我们的最终建议，这些技术在通用性和改善学生学习的前景方面存在很大差异。练习测试和分布式练习得到了高度实用的评估，因为它们有利于不同年龄和能力的学习者，并已被证明在许多标准任务中甚至在教育背景下提高了学生的表现。精心设计的询问、自我解释和交叉练习得到了适度的实用评估。这些技术的好处确实在一些变量中得到了概括，然而尽管它们很有希望，但它们没有进行高实用的评估，因为它们有效性的证据有限。例如，精心设计的审问和自我解释在教育背景下没有得到充分的评估，而且交错的好处才刚刚开始被系统地探索，因此这些技术的最终有效性目前尚不清楚。然而，获得中等效用评级的技巧显示出足够的前景来推荐它们在适当的情况下使用，我们在每种技巧的回顾中详细描述了这些技巧。五种技巧得到的效用评估较低：摘要、突出显示、关键字助记、图像用于文本学习和重读。由于种种原因，这些技术被评为实用性较低。摘要和表象在文本学习中的应用已经被证明可以帮助一些学生完成一些标准任务，但这些方法产生益处的条件是有限的，而且还需要进行大量的研究来充分探索它们的整体效果。关键字助记法在某些情况下很难实现，而且它似乎对学生在有限数量的材料和较短的记忆间隔内受益。大多数学生报告重读和突出显示，但这些技巧并不能持续提高学生的表现，因此应该使用其他技巧(例如，练习测试而不是重读)。我们希望这本专著将促进学生学习的改善，不仅通过展示哪些学习技巧可能具有最普遍的效果，还通过鼓励研究人员继续研究最有前途的技巧。因此，在结束语中，我们讨论了教师和学生如何实施这些技术的一些问题，并强调了未来研究的方向。
Many students are being left behind by an educational system that some people believe is in crisis. Improving educational outcomes will require efforts on many fronts, but a central premise of this monograph is that one part of a solution involves helping students to better regulate their learning through the use of effective learning techniques. Fortunately, cognitive and educational psychologists have been developing and evaluating easy-to-use learning techniques that could help students achieve their learning goals. In this monograph, we discuss 10 learning techniques in detail and offer recommendations about their relative utility. We selected techniques that were expected to be relatively easy to use and hence could be adopted by many students. Also, some techniques (e. g., highlighting and rereading) were selected because students report relying heavily on them, which makes it especially important to examine how well they work. The techniques include elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, summarization, highlighting (or underlining), the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, rereading, practice testing, distributed practice, and interleaved practice.To offer recommendations about the relative utility of these techniques, we evaluated whether their benefits generalize across four categories of variables: learning conditions, student characteristics, materials, and criterion tasks. Learning conditions include aspects of the learning environment in which the technique is implemented, such as whether a student studies alone or with a group. Student characteristics include variables such as age, ability, and level of prior knowledge. Materials vary from simple concepts to mathematical problems to complicated science texts. Criterion tasks include different outcome measures that are relevant to student achievement, such as those tapping memory, problem solving, and comprehension. We attempted to provide thorough reviews for each technique, so this monograph is rather lengthy. However, we also wrote the monograph in a modular fashion, so it is easy to use. In particular, each review is divided into the following sections:1. General description of the technique and why it should work2. How general are the effects of this technique?2a. Learning conditions2b. Student characteristics2c. Materials2d. Criterion tasks3. Effects in representative educational contexts4. Issues for implementation5. Overall assessmentThe review for each technique can be read independently of the others, and particular variables of interest can be easily compared across techniques.To foreshadow our final recommendations, the techniques vary widely with respect to their generalizability and promise for improving student learning. Practice testing and distributed practice received high utility assessments because they benefit learners of different ages and abilities and have been shown to boost students' performance across many criterion tasks and even in educational contexts. Elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, and interleaved practice received moderate utility assessments. The benefits of these techniques do generalize across some variables, yet despite their promise, they fell short of a high utility assessment because the evidence for their efficacy is limited. For instance, elaborative interrogation and self-explanation have not been adequately evaluated in educational contexts, and the benefits of interleaving have just begun to be systematically explored, so the ultimate effectiveness of these techniques is currently unknown. Nevertheless, the techniques that received moderate-utility ratings show enough promise for us to recommend their use in appropriate situations, which we describe in detail within the review of each technique.Five techniques received a low utility assessment: summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, and rereading. These techniques were rated as low utility for numerous reasons. Summarization and imagery use for text learning have been shown to help some students on some criterion tasks, yet the conditions under which these techniques produce benefits are limited, and much research is still needed to fully explore their overall effectiveness. The keyword mnemonic is difficult to implement in some contexts, and it appears to benefit students for a limited number of materials and for short retention intervals. Most students report rereading and highlighting, yet these techniques do not consistently boost students' performance, so other techniques should be used in their place ( e. g., practice testing instead of rereading).Our hope is that this monograph will foster improvements in student learning, not only by showcasing which learning techniques are likely to have the most generalizable effects but also by encouraging researchers to continue investigating the most promising techniques. Accordingly, in our closing remarks, we discuss some issues for how these techniques could be implemented by teachers and students, and we highlight directions for future research.