Psychological Factors Affecting Medical Students’ Learning with Erroneous Worked Examples

Abstract

The acquisition of diagnostic competence is seen as a major goal during the course of study in medicine. One innovative method to foster this goal is problem-based learning with erroneous worked examples provided in a computer learning environment. The present study explores the relationship of attitudinal, emotional and cognitive factors for learning with erroneous worked examples. 72 medical students from a German university worked with six case-based examples in the domain of arterial hypertension. Domain-specific conceptual prior knowledge, anxiety of making errors, attitudes towards errors, and ambiguity tolerance were measured as independent variables before the students worked with the examples. Diagnostic competence was operationalized by measuring conceptual, strategic, and conditional knowledge, which were assessed as dependent variables after working with the learning environment. A cluster analytic approach yielded three clusters. For each, the relationship with the learning outcome was analysed. Cluster membership significantly influenced the learning outcome in strategic, but not in conditional knowledge. Furthermore, cluster membership had a significant effect on conceptual knowledge; there was also an increase in conceptual knowledge for all clusters when conceptual knowledge measured after the treatment was compared to prior conceptual knowledge. The results clearly indicate the importance of a certain pattern of psychological factors for learning with erroneous worked examples.

The Effects of Learning from Correct and Erroneous Examples in Individual and Collaborative Settings

“…Such a positive attitude, in turn, may also encourage them to actively learn from errors. When learning from EE, students had to cope with not only their own errors but also the errors presented to them (Klopp et al 2013). Different attitudes toward errors could cause different coping mechanisms or motivation (Rybowiak et al 1999).…”

“…Attitude toward errors may influence information processing strategies or motivation, resulting in different learning achievements (Klopp et al 2013). In addition, confidence may be a predictor of the degree of effort and persistence (Litzler et al 2014).…”

Learning to Argue From Others’ Erroneous Arguments – Fostering Argumentation Competence Through Learning From Advocatory Errors

“…For instance, for errors concerning the use of statistical results, prior knowledge in statistics may matter in understanding the argumentation error. Klopp et al (2013) presented evidence that domain-specific prior knowledge is a factor determining the results of learning from advocatory errors. Taken together, the well-known importance of prior knowledge and the empirical evidence for its relevance in learning from errors and in learning argumentation skills imply the following: Firstly, the present level of argumentation competence should be controlled for and secondly, prior knowledge concerning the exemplifying domain should also be controlled for.…”