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理解课文的能力。这样的理解在本科理科课程中是具有挑战性的，因为文本经常描述复杂、动态和不可见的事物。有效理解文本的一个关键因素是监控和调节自己学习的能力。不幸的是，学生往往对自己的学习判断不准确，导致他们做出无效的学习选择，取得有限的学习成果。该项目将探索学习者生成的绘图，这是一种很有前途的策略，可以加强科学文本的自我调节学习。虽然在某些条件下，绘制图纸可以增强学习，但对于绘制过程的不同组成部分如何有助于理解和自我调节，人们知之甚少。这些组件包括制作图纸，将自己的图纸与反馈进行比较，以及根据反馈修改自己的图纸。该合作项目将进行第一组实验，旨在识别跨多个科学学科的学习者生成的绘图的关键元素。通过确定绘画的哪些部分有最大的好处，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，并支持那些最有可能在科学课程中挣扎的学生。这个项目将研究通过绘画学习如何有助于理解、监测准确性和自我调节。在一系列的实验室实验中，本项目将系统地分离出绘画的三种核心机制：生成、比较和修订的认知和元认知益处。根据学习过程中可用的诊断线索，该项目将测试最支持理解的学习条件可能与最支持元理解的学习条件不同的假设。一个项目的目标是确定绘图生成的最佳水平：完全由学习者生成、部分由学习者生成、教师提供或教师生成。第二个目标将研究主动比较一个人的全部或部分完成的图纸，以教师提供的图纸形式反馈的贡献。第三个目标将确定根据提供的反馈来修改学生生成或教师提供的图纸错误的作用。最终目标将结合最优生成、比较和修订条件，研究学生随后的再学习行为和学习成果。总的来说，理解通过绘画来支持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，以准确地调查这些机制是如何工作的，包括何时工作以及为谁工作。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.