3.2 Elaboration

Question 1

Penny study

Answer 1

Question: Ask participants questions about pennies? Things like, which is the true penny, draw the penny, etc.

Protocol:

Conditions:

Measuring: Success rate

Conclusion: Participants did not do so well
We can be exposed to something very often and yet remember very little of it, because learning requires attention and engagement
Passive learning is useless

Question 2

Rubber duck debugging

Answer 2

Question: How effective is the act of talking and explaining things in trying to debug code

Protocol:

Conditions:

Measuring:

Conclusion: Talking about things and explaining them is a powerful way to engage with ideas

Question 3

Levels of processing

Answer 3

We can process information in deeper or more superficial ways

Question: Does this depth influence memory?

Protocol:
Levels of processing measured like this:
A series of questions each followed by a word. The answers are yes or no. The words are tested later for recognition
4 types of questions:
Semantic: is the word a type of fish
Phonetic: does the work rhyme with weight
Elaborative semantic (contextual meaning): does the word fit in this sentence (the man peeled the _____)
Graphemic: Is the word in capital letters?

Conditions:

Measuring: Recognition rate

Conclusion:  From lowest processing to highest processing
Graphemic
Phonetic
Semantic
Elaborative Semantic
Same order for word recognition rate.

Question 4

Unprompted elaboration

Answer 4

Question: If elaboration is important for learning, is there a correlation between elaboration and academic success?

Protocol: Students given short statements (the hungry man got into his car. NOTE hungry has no relationship with the fact that he got into his car). Students asked to invent a continuation of the statement. Finally, the students’ memory of the statements is tested

Conditions: 2. More/less academically successful

Measuring: Recall rate

Conclusion: Examples of answers given: …and drove away, …to go to the restaurant.
How do the answers differ?
First one only related to car. Second one related to hungry and car.
Smart students tend to write precise elaborations that connect the formerly unrelated elements
Dumb students make statements less specific or connected
Smart students remembers more statements

In what way is the elaboration here unprompted? Students were not asked to complete the sentence in a way that connects the topics
Follow-up: Tendency to elaborate could be practiced, and this practice could improve grades

Question 5

Elaboration versus Explanation

Answer 5

Question: What explains the better retention from the unprompted elaboration study? Having an explanation or the act of elaborating?

Protocol: List of sentences describing various actions and persons (hungry man got into car, tall woman phoned sister). Then cued recall (who got into his car -> hungry man)

Conditions: 3 * 2.
Control group (read the sentences)
Pre-explained group (given an explanation ex …to go to restaurant)
Elaboration group (asked to come up with an explanation)
X
Intentional learning (told they are being tested)
Incidental learning (not told they have to remember the sentences, and given another purpose instead)

Measuring: Success rate

Conclusion: 
Incidental Worst to best:
Control
Pre-explain
Elaborated
Intentional worst to best:
Pre-explain
Read
Elaborated

Question 6

Elaboration and depth of knowledge

Answer 6

Depth of knowledge != levels of processing

Question: Does the impact of elaboration depend on knowing more or less on a subject.

Protocol: Canadian and German students learn facts about Canadian provinces and German states.

Conditions: 2*2
High/low domain knowledge * elaborative interrogation/control

Measuring: Success rate

Conclusion: 
High knowledge worst to best (difference is higher than in low knowledge):
Control
Elaborate
Low knowledge worst to best:
Control
Elaborate

Question 7

Elaboration and actors

Answer 7

Question: How do professional actors learn their lines?

Protocol: Learn a 6 page seen

Conditions: Pro actors vs novice actors

Measuring: Surveys and interviews. Then an analysis

Conclusion: Pros made many more elaborations of the materials. These elaboration included considering perspectives of the characters, their motivations.
Actors Report: Finding reasons why the character says each line and performs each action

Question 8

Elaboration during problem solving

Answer 8

Wason card-selection task: Cards with numbers on one side and a letter on the other. You are then given a rule (A->2). Decide which cards you must flip to prove rule.

Question:

Protocol: 2 phases
Phase 1: Set of concrete practice problems (jar of jam/ flavour on one side/ price on the other)
Phase 2: Set of abstract transfer problems (wason card-selection task). We want to see whether the practice in phase 1 influences phase 2

Conditions: 3, from manipulating verbal self-explanation (explaining to yourself how and why you are doing things)
Concurrent self-explanation: Initial prompt to self-explain while solving the problem
Retrospective self-explanation: no initial prompt/solved all problem first/then asked to explain
No self-explanation: No prompts and no explaining

Measuring: Problem solving accuracy

Conclusion:
Concrete Problems from worst to best (all pretty even):
No self-explanation
Retrospective
Concurrent
Same for abstract, but bigger differences

Question 9

What is principle 1.4?

Answer 9

Elaborate new ideas and make connections with things you already know.