AcknowledgementWe would like to thank Eleonora Dolderer, Maike Köncke, and Anna Rosenträger for their assistance in conducting the study and rating the qualitative data. Moreover, we would like to thank Christian Burkhart and Zarah Weiß for providing us with the computer-based text difficulty measures. The research reported in this article was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (BMBF) under contract number 01JA1611.

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Research demonstrated that oral explaining to a fictitious student improves learning. Whether these findings replicate in written contexts, and whether instructional explaining is more effective than other explaining strategies such as self-explaining is unclear. In two experiments, we compared written instructional explaining to written self-explaining, and also included written retrieval and a baseline control condition. In Experiment 1 (N = 147, between-participants-design, laboratory experiment), we obtained no effect of explaining. In Experiment 2 (N = 51, within-participants-design, field-experiment), only self-explaining was more effective than our control conditions for attaining transfer. Self-explaining was more effective than instructional explaining. A cumulating meta-analysis on students' learning revealed a small effect of instructional explaining (conceptual knowledge: g = 0.29, transfer: g = 0.22), which was moderated by the modality of explaining (oral explaining > written explaining). These findings indicate that when students writing explanations are better off self-explaining than explaining to a fictitious student.

Research demonstrated that oral explaining to a fictitious student improves learning. Whether these findings replicate in written contexts, and whether instructional explaining is more effective than other explaining strategies such as self-explaining is unclear. In two experiments, we compared written instructional explaining to written self-explaining, and also included written retrieval and a baseline control condition. In Experiment 1 (N = 147, between-participants-design, laboratory experiment), we obtained no effect of explaining. In Experiment 2 (N = 51, within-participants-design, field-experiment), only self-explaining was more effective than our control conditions for attaining transfer. Self-explaining was more effective than instructional explaining. A cumulating meta-analysis on students’ learning revealed a small effect of instructional explaining (conceptual knowledge: g = 0.29, transfer: g = 0.22), which was moderated by the modality of explaining (oral explaining > written explaining). These findings indicate that when students writing explanations are better off self-explaining than explaining to a fictitious student.

Writing explanations has demonstrated to be less effective than providing oral explanations, as writing triggers less amounts of perceived social presence during explaining. In this study, we investigated whether increasing social presence during writing explanations would aid learning. University students (N = 137) read an instructional text about immunology; their subsequent task depended on experimental condition. Students either explained the contents to a fictitious peer orally, wrote their explanations in a text editor, or wrote them in a messenger chat, which was assumed to induce higher levels of social presence. A control group retrieved the material. Surprisingly, we did not obtain any differences in learning outcomes between experimental conditions. Interestingly, explaining was more effortful, enjoyable, and interesting than retrieving. This study shows that solely inducing social presence does not improve learning from writing explanations. More importantly, the findings underscore the importance of cognitive and motivational conditions during learning activities.