Sandra Nogry

Reducing structural-element salience on a source problem produces later success in analogical transfer: What role does source difficulty play?

Two experiments in reasoning by analogy were conducted to study the role of inducing source difficulty by reducing the salience of the source’s structural elements. Three nonexclusive hypotheses were tested. According to the first, a difficult source problem improves analogical transfer because it increases the probability that the subject will notice the similarity between the source and the target. For example, errors made on both the source and the target can enhance the subject’s awareness of the similarity between the two problems. According to the second hypothesis, a source that is difficult to solve is memorized better than an easier source. According to the third, source-problem difficulty affects the degree of abstractness in the representation of the solution elaborated by subjects. Experiment 1 showed that the higher frequency of spontaneous transfer between the source and the target when the source problem was difficult (Gick & McGarry, 1992) could be replicated in a cued-transfer situation. Experiment 2 showed that subjects given a difficult source, one in which the important element was not very salient, were better at categorizing isomorphic problems on the basis of structural features than were subjects given an easy source. The discussion deals with the implications of these results for the hypotheses tested and, more generally, for reasoning by analogy and education in general.

Apprendre à partir d'exemples: interactions entre présentation du matériel, activités des apprenants et processus cognitifs

Dans de nombreuses disciplines, donner des exemples a etudier puis faire resoudre des problemes est l’un des moyens les plus utilises pour faire progresser les apprenants. Cet article presente une synthese non exhaustive des nombreux travaux qui, ces vingt dernieres annees, ont aborde la question de l’apprentissage a partir de l’analyse d’exemples. Nous presentons des resultats experimentaux sur les liens entre les activites cognitives developpees face aux exemples, la nature du materiel etudie, et les progres realises. Ces travaux ont montre que certains choix quant aux activites cognitives deployees et quant a la presentation des exemples ont une influence significative sur l’apprentissage. En parallele a la presentation de ces recherches, nous proposons des hypotheses sur les processus cognitifs susceptibles d’expliquer ces resultats.

How to combine objectives and methods of evaluation in iterative ILE design: lessons learned from designing Ambre-add

This article deals with evaluating an interactive learning environment (ILE) during the iterative-design process. Various aspects of the system must be assessed and a number of evaluation methods are available. In designing the ILE Ambre-add, several techniques were combined to test and refine the system. In particular, we point out the merits of combining measures of the ILEs impact on learning with analyses of the learners activity. In this article, the approach used to evaluate Ambre-add is described and analyzed, and its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Then, a general procedure for evaluating ILEs during iterative design is proposed.