Project Details
Projekt
Learning subtraction strategies with interleaved practice
Subject Area
Developmental and Educational Psychology
General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
Term
since 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 450142163
Numerous studies show that primary school students rarely use subtraction strategies flexibly and adaptively. To foster students’ ability to use subtraction strategies flexibly and adaptively, interleaved practice seems to be a promising approach because it supports students in abstracting the specific application conditions of different subtraction strategies by studying various tasks alternately. However, empirical results on interleaving mathematical tasks are inconsistent. The concrete implementation of interleaved practice seems to be crucial. According to the discriminative-contrast hypothesis, comparison processes are expected to be underlying learning mechanisms explaining the advantage of interleaved over blocked practice. However, especially primary school students might need further instructional support to use the evoked comparison processes. In our previous study on subtraction strategies in primary school mathematics, we therefore implemented interleaved practice that included additional instructional support (simultaneous presentation, comparison prompts, self-explanation prompts), which had a remarkable effect on students’ strategy proficiency compared to blocked practice. However, instructional support was provided but not systematically varied, so that the extent to which the interleaved presentation and the additional forms of support contributed to the observed learning effect is unclear. The current project aims at investigating whether adding additional instructional support can increase the effectiveness of interleaved learning in primary school mathematics and thus enhance students’ lasting learning. In three experiments, third graders will be taught in using different number-based subtraction strategies adaptively. The experiments’ different conditions will only vary regarding the order of strategies and additional forms of instructional support. To investigate the (lasting) learning effect, students’ in all conditions will be tested at three points of measurement: immediately after the treatment, 8 weeks and 4 months later. In Experiment 1 (N = 292), we will investigate if an increasing interleaved practice of subtraction strategy is more beneficial than a ‘pure’ form of interleaved or blocked practice for third graders’ proficiency in subtraction strategies and if including self-explanation prompts also contributes to students’ strategy proficiency. Based on the ‘best’ interleaved learning condition from Experiment 1 (probably increasing interleaved practice with self-explanation prompts), Experiment 2 (N = 242) will explore if presenting the tasks simultaneously instead of sequentially in (increasing) interleaved practice can boost students’ strategy proficiency and lasting learning. Experiment 3 (N = 242) investigates if including comparison prompts in (increasing) interleaved practice with a simultaneous task presentation positively affects students’ subtraction strategy proficiency sustainably.
DFG Programme
Research Units
