Interleaved learning with verbal materials

将不同类别的样本交叉排列，而不是以遮遮掩掩的方式呈现每个类别的样本，这似乎是一种简单但有效的方法，可以改善学校的归纳学习。尽管某些类型的材料(如自然主义绘画和其他视觉材料)一直表现出交错的优势，但对于语言材料，如单个单词或说明性文本，结果是喜忧参半的。此外，到目前为止进行的所有研究都只以成年学习者为基础，只使用了立即或略有延迟的学习结果评估。因此，在学龄儿童中，通过使用交叉学习方案和语言材料，可以在多大程度上改善持久知识的获得还是个未知数。本项目将有助于缩小这一研究差距，重点关注三个典型的学习目标，这些目标依赖于归纳和口头材料：(1)在初级读者中获得字形-音素对应规则，(2)获得拼写规则，(3)基于样例的口头描述获得概念知识。归纳学习中的顺序效应理论，如注意的顺序理论，强调了影响样本交错呈现效果的条件。当不同的类别难以区分时，交错应该比阻塞更有效，因此类别之间的比较对于掌握类别结构至关重要。相反，当属于同一类别的样本的共性更重要时，阻止应该更有效。第一个目标是阐明，当满足类间相似度高和类内相似度低的条件时，以不同复杂性的言语材料为重点的交叉学习是否比阻断学习更有效。拟议研究的次要目标将是检查教学支持的作用。关于数学学习的实验研究表明，教学支持可能是学校环境中交错效应的一个重要调节因素。教授相关的比较策略并促使学生在交错学习中使用这些策略可能会增加交错学习的好处，并增加实际受益于交错学习的学生数量。第三个目的是通过改变保留间隔，从学习后立即改变到8周和最多一年，来检验交错对持久学习的作用。最后，我们还将收集学习过程的衡量标准，以探索学习者如何从交错中受益，重点是学习过程的动态表明样本之间的区别和比较。

Interleaving exemplars of different categories compared to presenting exemplars of each category in a blocked fashion seems to be a simple but powerful way to improve inductive learning at school. Although a consistent advantage of interleaving has been demonstrated for certain types of materials (such as naturalistic paintings and other visual materials), the results for verbal materials, such as single words or expository texts, are mixed. Moreover, all studies conducted to date have been based only on adult learners and have used only immediate or slightly delayed assessments of learning outcomes. Therefore, the extent that the acquisition of lasting knowledge can be improved by using interleaved learning schemes with verbal materials in school children is unknown. The present project will contribute to closing this research gap by focusing on three typical learning objectives that rely on induction and verbal materials: (1) The acquisition of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in beginning readers, (2) the acquisition of spelling rules, and (3) the acquisition of conceptual knowledge based on verbal descriptions of exemplars. Theories of sequential effects in inductive learning, such as the sequential theory of attention, highlight conditions that influence the effects of an interleaved presentation of exemplars. Interleaving should be more effective than blocking when the different categories are difficult to discriminate, and comparisons between categories are therefore crucial for grasping the category structure. In contrast, blocking should be more effective when commonalities of exemplars belonging to the same category are more important. The first aim will be to clarify whether interleaved learning with verbal materials of different complexity, focused on different types of knowledge (phonological, orthographic, and semantic knowledge), is more effective than blocked learning when the conditions of high between-category similarity and low within-category similarity are fulfilled. The secondary aim of the proposed research will be to examine the role of instructional support. Experimental studies on mathematics learning suggest that instructional support might be an important moderator of the effect of interleaving in school settings. Teaching relevant comparison strategies and prompting students to use these strategies in interleaved learning might increase the benefits of interleaving and the number of students that actually profit from interleaving. The third aim is to examine the role of interleaving for lasting learning by varying the retention interval from immediately after learning to eight weeks and up to one year. Finally, we will also collect measures of learning processes to explore what learners do to benefit from interleaving, with a focus on dynamics of the learning process that indicate discrimination and comparison between exemplars.