"Strategies and Mechanisms for the Construction and Refinement of Programming Knowledge: A Unified Computational Model of Learning."

这个项目将开发一个认知模型，解决计算机编程领域中的人类学习问题。在前人研究和后续心理学研究的基础上，教学文本的理解被表述为一个问题解决过程，其目标是构建领域实体、过程原则和问题解决启发式的心理模型。在这些文本中引入的新概念可以通过解释它们与教学中提供的例子的关系而被赋予意义。这个项目的一个主要目标将是模拟学习者在自我解释例子方面的差异。具体地说，初步研究表明，学习者在向自己解释例子的方式上存在差异，这些差异与随后的编程表现有显著的相关性。另一个主要目标将是研究和开发一个模式，使学习者反思他们的问题解决并产生新的策略。认知科学对这两个领域的研究都很少。我们的结果将对复杂形式领域的学习心理学、机器学习中知识的获取和修改以及教学研究具有重要意义。

This project will develop a cognitive model addressing human learning in the domain of computer programming. Building on prior research and additional psychological studies to be carried out, the comprehension of instructional text is formulated as a problem solving process in which the goal is to construct mental models of domain entities, process principles, and problem solving heuristics. New concepts introduced in these texts may be given meaning by explaining their relation to examples presented in instruction. One major goal of this project will be to model differences among learners in the self-explanation of examples. Specifically, preliminary studies show that learners differ in the way that they explain examples to themselves, and these differences have significant correlations with subsequent programming performance. Another major goal will be to study and develop a model whereby learners reflect on their problem solving and generate new strategies. Both of these areas have received little study in cognitive science. Our results should be important to the psychology of learning in complex formal domains, the acquisition and modification of knowledge in machine learning, and instructional research.