Collaborative Research: Exploring the Comprehension and Meta-comprehension Benefits of Learner-Generated Drawings in Science

学业上的成功取决于学生对课文的理解能力。这种理解在本科科学课程中可能具有挑战性，因为文本通常描述复杂，动态和不可见的事物。有效文本理解的一个关键因素是监控和调节自己学习的能力。不幸的是，学生往往是不准确的判断他们的学习，导致他们作出无效的学习选择，并实现有限的学习成果。这个项目将探讨学习者生成的绘图，一个有前途的战略，以加强自我调节学习的科学文本。虽然在某些情况下，绘画可以增强学习，但人们对绘画过程的不同组成部分如何促进理解和自我调节知之甚少。 这些组成部分包括制作图纸，将自己的图纸与反馈进行比较，并根据反馈修改自己的图纸。这个合作项目将进行第一组实验，旨在确定跨多个科学学科的学习者生成的图纸的关键元素。通过确定绘画的哪些组成部分具有最大的好处，这项研究可以帮助教师更有效地实施基于绘画的学习活动，并支持那些在科学课程中最有可能挣扎的学生。 这个项目将研究如何通过绘画学习有助于理解，监测准确性和自我调节。在一系列的实验室实验中，这个项目将系统地分离出绘画的三个核心机制的认知和元认知优势：生成，比较和修改。该项目将测试的假设，最好的支持理解的学习条件可能不同于最好的支持元理解的条件，这取决于在学习过程中可用的诊断线索。一个项目的目标是确定绘图生成的最佳级别：完全学习者生成，部分学习者生成，绘图器提供或绘图器生成。第二个目标将研究积极比较一个人的全部或部分完成的图纸反馈的贡献，以提供图纸的形式。第三个目标将确定的作用，修改学习者产生的或绘图员提供的错误，在图纸的基础上提供的反馈。最终目的是结合联合收割机的最优生成、比较和修正条件，研究学生后续的再学习行为和学习结果。总的来说，理解支持通过绘画学习的机制将有助于现有的自我调节学习模型，并为未来的研究提供路线图，调查这些机制是如何工作的，包括它们何时工作以及为谁工作。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Academic success depends on students’ ability to comprehend text. Such comprehension can be challenging in undergraduate science courses because the text often describes things that are complex, dynamic, and invisible. One critical factor in effective text comprehension is the ability to monitor and regulate one’s own learning. Unfortunately, students are often inaccurate judges of their learning, leading them to make ineffective study choices and to achieve limited learning outcomes. This project will explore learner-generated drawing, a promising strategy for enhancing self-regulated learning from science text. Although creating drawings can enhance learning under some conditions, little is known about how different components of the drawing process contribute to comprehension and self-regulation. These components include making the drawing, comparing one’s drawing to feedback, and revising one’s drawing in response to the feedback. This collaborative project will conduct the first set of experiments designed to identify critical elements of learner-generated drawings across multiple scientific disciplines. By identifying which components of drawing have the strongest benefits, this research can help instructors more effectively implement drawing-based learning activities and support students who are most at-risk of struggling in science courses. This project will investigate how learning by drawing contributes to comprehension, monitoring accuracy, and self-regulation. In a series of laboratory experiments, this project will systematically isolate the cognitive and metacognitive benefits of three core mechanisms of drawing: generation, comparison, and revision. The project will test the hypothesis that the learning conditions that best support comprehension may differ from the conditions that best support meta-comprehension, depending on the diagnostic cues available during learning. One project aim is to determine the optimal level of drawing generation: fully-learner-generated, partially-learner-generated, instructor-provided, or instructor-generated. The second aim will study the contribution of actively comparing one’s fully or partially completed drawings to feedback in the form of instructor-provided drawings. The third aim will identify the role of revising learner-generated or instructor-provided errors in drawings based on provided feedback. The final aim will combine optimal generation, comparison, and revision conditions, and study students’ subsequent restudy behavior and learning outcomes. Overall, understanding the mechanisms that support learning by drawing will contribute to existing models of self-regulated learning and provide a roadmap for future research investigating precisely how these mechanisms work, including when they work and for whom.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.