individual differences in learning

Question 1

what are learning styles

Answer 1

idea that people learn better with a particular mode of teaching
people are categorized into these types

Question 2

popularity of learning styles

Answer 2

promoted by universities
scientific handbooks
school teacher programs

Question 3

why learning theories are popular

Answer 3

like to be treated as an individual

something to blame if do badly in exam

Question 4

assessment of learning styles

Answer 4

many different tests
but costly
questions not related to learning types?

Question 5

Origin of learning-styles concept

Answer 5

personality theories

used for life coaching and occupational decisions

Question 6

study preference

Answer 6

very different from learning style
people can adapt and still work in other conditions
just a favored condition not needed

Question 7

learning styles hypothesis

Answer 7

must be a valid crossover interaction

Question 8

Clean and accurate methodology

Answer 8

1. Participants are divided into groups on basis of their reported learning style
2. Random assignment to different instruction modes
3. All participants take the same final test
4. Find crossover interaction between learning style and instruction method.

Question 9

Stenberg et al 1999

supporting

Answer 9

Used only gifted high school students
Only one third of the student sample was included
Random assignment to the conditions
But deviant scores were deleted – with no explanation
Concluded that - Students in the matched condition better than students in the mismatched condition
But this is not a very valid study and has many problems

Question 10

Massa & Mayer 2006

Answer 10

• Visual or verbal learners
• Randomised assignment to conditions – help screens with computer-based task
• = no tendency for better performance for those participants who were in matching condition

Question 11

Cook et al 2009

Answer 11

medical students
sensing and intuitive learners
found no evidence

Question 12

Constantinidou & Baker 2002

Answer 12

visualizer-verbalizer questionnaire

visual - better free recall but no crossover interaction

Question 13

Rogowsky, Calhoun & Tallal 2015

Answer 13

found cross over in the wrong way

Question 14

dual coding

Answer 14

learn better when combine different representations

Question 15

fixed mindset

Answer 15

the belief that abilities and intelligence are fixed (innate trait) and nothing can be done to change this – a person is either smart or not

Question 16

consequences of fixed mindset

Answer 16

• The goal is to keep looking smart to others
• avoid challenging tasks - miss opportunities to learn from mistakes
• Stop trying sooner – less resilience when obstacles are detected
• Don’t bother with effort
• Problems with coping with setbacks – attributed to not being smart enough
• More likely to lie about obtaining scores, blame others or consider cheating

Question 17

growth mindset

Answer 17

the belief that own abilities and intelligence are malleable and if you put in time and effort you can develop them – a person works hard to achieve something

Question 18

growth mindset consequences

Answer 18

• The goal is to develop abilities over time.
• Embrace new and challenging tasks as opportunities to learn.
• They are more persistent - high resilience when obstacles ahead
• Like the effort because the past has shown that it is worth working on something
• Handle setbacks in a constructive way.
• More likely to develop new strategies and trying everything they can to succeed.

Question 19

Mueller & Dweck 1998

fixed/growth mindset

Answer 19

experiment on 5th graders non-verbal IQ
fixed - must be smart
growth - must have worked hard
those in fixed mindset chose to do easier problems as thought they could not get any better

Question 20

coping with failure

mindsets

Answer 20

• fixed = more likely to lie about what they got and had lowest persistence and enjoyment in task

Question 21

long term effect of mindset

Answer 21

maths performance over 2 years
growth - improved over time
intervention to foster growth = improvement

Question 22

long term effect of mindset - problems

Answer 22

• failed to replicate this research

- Researchers are generally sceptical towards the effects and have questioned their reliability

Question 23

rule-based learner

Answer 23

high performance
try find out what the underlying rule or principle is and understand why the solution is an adequate one
abstract from practiced examples to unpracticed new examples

Question 24

exemplar based learner

Answer 24

students memorise the key task features and essentially learn the steps to the solution

• Very distracted by superficial task features and are very easy to confuse by using similar wording and practiced examples
• No ability to abstract from practise examples to unpractised, new examples

Question 25

ambiguous

Answer 25

similar regarding superficial features, but dissimilar regarding rules

Question 26

unambiguous

Answer 26

similar regarding superficial features and rules

Question 27

McDaniel et al (2014)

functional learning

Answer 27

near transfer = both done well as similar to training

far transfer = only rule based done well

Question 28

Little & McDaniel 2015

category learning

Answer 28

Participants categorized shape stimuli during training into one of two categories: dax or blicket.
self‐reported rule abstractors = more likely to classify ambiguous transfer items according to the rule
More likely to classify ambiguous transfer items and exemplar‐favored items according to similarity.

Question 29

relevance for education

Answer 29

Rule‐based learners outperformed exemplar‐learners on the conceptual questions, but not in the fact memorisation questions