Comparison of Trial-and-Error Versus Highly Prompted Learning of a Perceptual Skill

A Comparison of Discovery Learning and Guided Instructional Strategies on Motor Skill Learning, Retention, and Transfer

“…'The literature that deals with the effect of different instructional strategies on the learning of initial skills or cognitive materials seems to support the general conclusion that guided techniques of learning are the most efficient (10,11,12,16,17). Prather (1 1) cites his own review (10) and that of Lau's (9) to conclude that in simple learning tasks, guided learning procedures should be more efficient when training is restricted to a few trials.…”

To Err or Not to Err: A Question for the Instruction of Psychomotor Skills

“…They reported that heavily prompted learning led to a significant advantage over the trial-and-error learning in early trials. However, with more trials and performance reaching an asymptote, there was little difference in performance as a result of the training methods used (Berry, Prather, & Jones, 1971;Berry, Prather, & Bermudez, 1973;Prather & Berry, 1970). A comparison between the two instructional strategies showed that the trial-and-error method produced greater transfer than did the error-free method (Prather, 1969;Prather & Berry, 1970;Berry, Prather, & Jones, 1971;Prather, 1971).…”

“…However, with more trials and performance reaching an asymptote, there was little difference in performance as a result of the training methods used (Berry, Prather, & Jones, 1971;Berry, Prather, & Bermudez, 1973;Prather & Berry, 1970). A comparison between the two instructional strategies showed that the trial-and-error method produced greater transfer than did the error-free method (Prather, 1969;Prather & Berry, 1970;Berry, Prather, & Jones, 1971;Prather, 1971). Using pursuit rotor tasks of varying degrees of difficulty, however, Macrae and Holding (1966b) demonstrated that trial-and-error practice led to more transfer to a simple task while guidance practice yielded better transfer to a complex task.…”

Transfer of Training: An Interpretive Review

“…In general, guidance has been reported to be either as effective (Prather and Berry, 1970) or more effective (Singer and Gaines, 1975;Singer and Pease, 1976) than discovery training in promoting Task 1 learning. Transfer results, however, have not been as straightforward.…”