How to foster learning from introductory instructional explanations relating to the domain of chemistry through specific relevance instructions?

提供教学解释是向学习者介绍新内容的常用手段。介绍性教学解释通常从基础部分开始，其中以抽象形式解释新内容，然后是示例部分，给出应用抽象内容的示例。然而，实证研究表明，学习者经常对这种介绍性的解释处理得不够充分，结果往往不能充分发挥他们的潜力。促进关键（相关）学习过程的一个有希望的方法是提供具体的相关指导。具体而言，最近的研究表明，要求学习者将示例与抽象的基本内容联系起来的特定关联指令和要求学习者在不参考示例的情况下详细阐述抽象的基本内容的以基础为重点的特定关联指令都可以促进学习效果。然而，到目前为止，这两种类型的特定关联指令的效果仅在使用不同类型的学习成果测量的单独研究中进行了探索。因此，关注基础的特定相关指令和旨在引出示例基础关系的特定相关指令是否具有不同的效果，这是一个悬而未决的问题。此外，目前尚不清楚这两种类型的具体相关指令是否应该在促进从介绍性解释中学习的过程中结合起来。关于这个问题，最近的研究结果指出了相互矛盾的假设：(a)以基础为重点的特定关联指令可能会促进随后旨在引出示例-基础关系的特定关联指令的有效性，或者(b)如果学习者随后被指示将示例与抽象的基本内容联系起来，则以基础为重点的特定关联指令是多余的。最近的研究结果强调了基于检索的学习的使用，在此背景下，一个进一步的开放性问题是，如果学习者必须在不能够参考基本部分的情况下做出回应，从而依赖于检索过程，那么设计用于引出示例-基础关系的特定相关指令是否更有效。在最近的研究中，人们假设在检索模式下的学习过程的引出通常是优越的。相反，我们认为在检索模式中引出示例-基础关系的效果取决于学习者之前是否对以基础为重点的特定关联指令做出了反应。我们提出两个相关的实验，旨在解决这些开放性问题的背景下，从介绍性教学解释有关的化学领域的学习。

The provision of instructional explanations is a frequently used means to introduce learners to new content. Introductory instructional explanations typically begin with a basics-part in which new content is explained in an abstract form, followed by an example-part that gives examples in which the abstract content is applied. However, empirical studies show that learners regularly process such introductory explanations insufficiently and, as a consequence, often fail to exploit their full potential. A promising means to foster critical (relevant) learning processes is the provision of specific relevance instructions. Specifically, recent studies show that both specific relevance instructions that require learners to relate the examples to the abstract basic content and basics-focusing specific relevance instructions that tell learners to elaborate on the abstract basic content without referring to the examples can foster learning outcomes. Up to now, however, the effects of these two types of specific relevance instructions have only been explored in separate studies that used different types of learning outcomes measures. Therefore, it is an open question as to whether basics-focusing specific relevance instructions and specific relevance instructions designed to elicit example-basics relations have differential effects. Furthermore, it is unclear whether these two types of specific relevance instructions should be combined over the course of fostering learning from introductory explanations. Regarding this question, recent findings point to the conflicting hypotheses that (a) basics-focusing specific relevance instructions might foster the effectiveness of subsequent specific relevance instructions designed to elicit example-basics relations or that (b) basics-focusing specific relevance instructions are redundant if learners are subsequently instructed to relate the examples to the abstract basic content. Against the background of recent findings that highlight the use of retrieval-based learning, a further open question is whether specific relevance instructions designed to elicit example-basics relations are more effective if learners have to respond to them without being able to refer back to the basics-part and thus are reliant on retrieval processes. In recent works it was hypothesized that eliciting of learning processes in a retrieval mode would be generally superior. In contrast, we argue that the effects of eliciting example-basics relations in a retrieval mode depend on whether learners have previously responded to basics-focusing specific relevance instructions. We propose two related experiments designed to address these open questions in the context of learning from introductory instructional explanations relating to the domain of chemistry.