M. C. Wittrock

Learning as a Generative Process

A cognitive model of human learning with understanding is introduced. Empirical research supporting the model, which is called the generative model, is summarized. The model is used to suggest a way to integrate some of the research in cognitive development, human learning, human abilities, information processing, and aptitude-treatment interactions around the notion of transfer of experience and abilities.

Generation of Summaries and Analogies and Analytic and Holistic Abilities

This study investigates predictions from Wittrock’s model of generative teaching regarding the effects of reader generation of summaries and analogies upon the learning of a block of 50 paragraphs of text. In this study, 59 students were individually assigned at random to three treatments that were predicted and found to rank in the following high to low order on the reading test: (a) Generate Summaries (M = 29.8), (b) Generate Analogies (M = 27.2), and (c) Read Text ( M = 22.4). We also hypothesized and found that the generation of analogies or summaries during reading differentially stimulates learners’ analytic and holistic (i.e., imagery) abilities. In the Read Text treatment, only holistic ability correlated with learning the high imagery text. In the Generate Analogies treatment, only analytic ability correlated with learning the text. In the Generate Summaries treatment, both holistic and analytic ability correlated with learning.

The cognitive movement in instruction

(1978). The cognitive movement in instruction. Educational Psychologist: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 15-29.

Word Frequency and Reading Comprehensiony1

AbstractIt was hypothesized that by varying the frequency of 15 percent of the words in elementary school reading materials, gains in the comprehension of the meaning of entire passages could be produced. To test this hypothesis, 222 sixth graders were randomly assigned to two reading treatments, presented simultaneously in the same room, differing only in the frequency of 15 percent of the words used in the stories. Reading comprehension was significantly increased (p > .0001) with high frequency story passages. Results indicated that increases in the frequency of a small percentage of words enhanced story comprehension, while a few less familiar words inhibited comprehension of the total passage. The data suggest that, in the design of reading materials for use in elementary schools, sizable increases in reading comprehension can be produced by increased attention to the semantic variable of word frequency.

Generative Teaching: An Enhancement Strategy for the Learning of Economics in Cooperative Groups

The purpose of this study was to increase the learning of economics among lower socioeconomic level public high school students by teaching them to use generative comprehension procedures in their economics classes’ cooperative learning groups. In a randomly assigned two-treatment design, it was predicted and found that generative learning procedures in cooperative learning classes increased (p < . 0001) the learning of economics by sizable amounts compared with a control procedure that used only cooperative learning methods and that produced smaller increases. Students’ confidence in the correctness of their answers increased (p < . 0001), and the level of misinformation decreased (p < . 0001) as a result of generative teaching procedures. These facilitative effects of generative teaching occurred for both males and females.

Assessing problem solving in expert systems using human benchmarking

Abstract The human benchmarking approach attempts to assess problem solving in expert systems by measuring their performance against a range of human problem-solving performances. We established a correspondence between functions of the expert system GATES and human problem-solving skills required to perform a scheduling task. We then developed process and outcome measures and gave them to people of different assumed problem-solving ability. The problem-solving ability or “intelligence” of this expert system is extremely high in the narrow domain of scheduling planes to airport gates as indicated by its superior performance compared to that of undergraduates, graduate students and expert human schedulers (i.e. air traffic controllers). In general, the study supports the feasibility of using human benchmarking methodology to evaluate the problem-solving ability of a specific expert system.

Transfer of Prior Learning to Verbal Instruction

Using a proactive model of transfer of learning, two hypotheses were tested about how specific, experimentally induced differences in prior instruction determine the results of subsequent verbal instruction. In an experiment, 352 children from inner city schools in Los Angeles were individually randomly assigned to six treatments and individually taught and tested. The results supported the two hypotheses about transfer, indicating that transfer depended upon the congruence between the students’ previous learning in the experiment and subsequent instruction.

Book Reviews: Levin, Joel R., & Allen, Vernon L. Cognitive learning in children. New York: Academic Press, 1976, 297 + xvi pp.,

In this impressive, edited volume, eight authors discuss childrens cognitive learning, including strategies for improving cognitive learning and strategies for improving classroom instruction. The authors, all presently or formerly associated with the University of Wisconsin, conducted the research presented in this volume largely through the programs of the University of Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning, established in 1964. In the first of three parts of the volume, entitled Learning, Development, and Cognitive Abilities, Herbert Klausmeier presents his model of the development of childrens concepts, which includes four levels, beginning at the earliest age with the concrete level, followed respectively by the identity, classificatory, and formal levels. Gisela Labouvie-Vief discusses individual differences in intellectual abilities, as they relate to childrens learning and as they interact with instructional treatments. Elizabeth Ghatala and Joel Levin write about childrens recognition memory and its role in concept learning and in performance on tests given in schools. In the second part of the book, which describes research on strategies for improving cognitive learning, Joel Levin discusses how pictures and the notion of visual imagery can be used to improve childrens learning. He reviews and organizes findings from a wide variety of studies on visual imagery. In an interestingly written and stimulating chapter, Robert Davidson contends that children often learn concepts by the process of hypostatization, which involves transforming abstract information into familiar forms, frequently by using metaphors and analogies. His original approach relates research on concept learning to procedures which teachers often use in the classroom. Richard Venezky discusses his research on the cognitive skills involved in prereading or reading readiness. Surprisingly, in this complex field he finds that the number of cognitive skills prerequisite to reading are probably fewer than others have previously thought. He emphasizes five skills: attending to letter order, to letter orientation, and to word detail, as well as the matching of sounds, and the blending of sounds. The book concludes with three chapters on the improvement of classroom instruction. Herbert Klausmeier focuses upon instructional design and the teaching of concepts, building upon his model of concept learning introduced in the first chapter of the volume. Gary Davis, well known for his books and research studies on creativity, discusses the training of creative thinking, including many of his research studies and the development of instructional

17.50.

AbstractIt was hypothesized that the learning of Kinetic Molecular Theory (KMT) would be greater for children receiving an “easy” instructional set than the children receiving a “difficult” instructional set. First and second graders numbering 139 were randomly assigned to four groups. One treatment group was told that the lessons they were going to learn were “easy,” while the other treatment group was told the lessons were “difficult.” The first control group received the lessons without an explicit set, and the second control group did not receive the lessons, but was given the posttest.Analysis of covariance performed on the post test scores resulted in significant Fs (p < .001) for the treatment and for the covariable, IQ. Newman-Keuls specific comparison tests revealed no statistically significant differences between the means of either of the treatment groups and Control group 1. The means of the 2 Treatment groups and Control group 1 each differed from the mean of Control group 2. The findings dem...