Learning for later teaching: An exploration of mediational links between teaching expectancy and learning results

Abstract

It was investigated to what extent the expectancy of a teaching demand influences learning results. In addition, possible mediator effects were explored. Thirty-six subjects (students of education) learned from worked-out examples in the domain of probability calculus under two different conditions: The experimental group expected to be required to explain similar worked-out examples to a third person, whereas the control group merely anticipated to be tested on similar problems. The results showed that the teaching expectancy decreased the superficiality of studying the worked-out examples, lowered intrinsic motivation, and increased, to some extent, anxiety during learning. The learning results were negatively influenced by anxiety during learning and were positively associated with the time allocated to construct a sound problem representation. However, no assumed mediator effect proved to be of real significance. In addition, the learning gains were not affected by the teaching expectancy.

Learning from worked-out examples: A study on individual differences

“…On the other hand, studying examples with varying surface structures fosters transfer Paas & VanMerrienboer, 1994), and thus a positive relation also seems plausible. Renkl (1995) found a nonsignificant positive association between number of examples and learning gains. In the present study, the extent to which the control variable "number of examples inspected" is related to learning is examined for the case where indicators of the superficiality of processing taken from the verbal protocols are controlled.…”

Does Metacognitive Knowledge About Explanation Moderate the Effect of Explanation Expectancy?

“…Several studies have reported empirical evidence of the beneficial effect of explanation expectancy (Annis, 1983;Bargh & Schul, 1980;Benware & Deci, 1984;Fiorella & Mayer, 2013;Sugie & Kajita, 1989). However, this enhancement has not been consistently demonstrated in other studies that have manipulated expectancy (Ehly, Keith, & Bratton, 1987;Fukaya, 2013;Ito & Kakihana, 2009;Renkl, 1995;Schommer, Crouse, & Rhodes, 1992), and the reasons for these inconsistent results are quite unclear (Renkl, 1995).…”

“…We must note, however, that in this study, participants were only required to write an explanation. Although Renkl (1995) did not clarify this point, the anxiety effect should be smaller with written explanation compared to oral explanation in the presence of another person. Therefore we did not consider that anxiety effect could fully explain the results of this study.…”

“…For example, these results could be explained by anxiety for later explanation. Renkl (1995) showed that explanation expectation significantly enhanced state anxiety during learning (but only at the 10% level of significance). This result suggests that especially for students with low elaborative explaining orientation, explanation expectancy caused state anxiety, because they do not know how to effectively prepare explanation.…”

Comparison of Two Small‐group Learning Methods in 12th‐grade Physics Classes Focusing on Intrinsic Motivation and Academic Performance

“…First, in contrast to the cyclical rotation groups, the learners in the expert groups are aware of the demand to teach their peers in the jigsaw group ('teaching expectancy', Renkl, 1995) and they subsequently teach each other. Second, due to the task-specialisation in the jigsaw setting, each group member is accountable for a unique part of the activity and the students in the jigsaw groups are dependent on their experts' knowledge.…”