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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Education THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF MINDFUL ABSTRACTION ACTIVITIES ON TWO TYPES OF TRANSFER AND THE RELATION WITH KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ANALOGUES IN ONLINE SITUATED LEARNING A Thesis in Instructional Systems by Jiyeon Ryu © 2007 Jiyeon Ryu Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2007 The thesis of Jiyeon Ryu was reviewed and approved* by the following: Barbara L. Grabowski Professor of Education Thesis Adviser Chair of Committee Francis M. Dwyer Professor of Education Kyle L. Peck Professor of Education Rayne A. Sperling Associate Professor of Education Susan M. Land Associate Professor of Education In Charge of Graduate Programs in Instructional Systems *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT The goal of situated learning is to promote the use of knowledge in real-life. Because knowledge is inseparable from context, situated learning emphasizes the use of authentic situations as learning environments. To promote the use of knowledge in different situations, transfer should be the main consideration because the same knowledge appears differently in different situations according to situative perspective. Many studies, however, indicate that transfer is a weakness of situated learning. Salomon and Perkins (1989) introduced a framework consisting of two different types of transfer employing different transfer mechanisms. Low-road transfer occurs through automatization built from repeated practice, while high-road transfer occurs through deliberate recognition of similarities between a new situation and prior experience. Recognition is accomplished by explicit elicitation of abstraction, that is, abstracting principles from prior situations that can be used in new situations. Based on the framework, situated learning induces low-road transfer at best, but not high-road transfer because the learning model does not provide explicit abstraction practice. The abstraction process involves decontextualization of situations and representation of what is decontextualized into more general symbolic forms. Analogy is one of the well known strategies to abstract general principles, and many studies using analogy to elicit abstraction show transfer in learners’ performance. Two factors are known influence effective abstraction practice. The first factor is knowledge about analogues used for eliciting abstraction. Because analogy needs an analogue for comparison with a given situation to elicit abstraction effectively and for use of an analogue, the analogue must be understood first. The second factor that is influential for effective iv abstraction practice is the degree of mindfulness for the abstraction process. Mindfulness refers to a state of conscious awareness for exertion of active cognitive activities. The more the abstraction is mindful, the more the activities are generative. However, high-level mindfulness may cause mental exhaustion which may hinder effective and efficient learning achievement. In this study, the effect of different levels of mindful abstraction activities on two types of transfer and the relation with knowledge about analogues were investigated to promote transfer in situated learning. The results showed that mindful abstraction activities were significantly more effective for high-road transfer when participants practiced with effortful abstraction activities than when they practiced with effortless abstraction activities (Ha1-1). However, the mindful abstraction activities did not show a significant difference among the groups in low-road transfer (H02). Knowledge about analogues showed no significant difference between the groups in both high-road transfer (H03) or low-road transfer (H04). No significant interaction was found between levels of mindfulness and level of knowledge about analogues for either high-road transfer (H05) or low-road transfer (H06). Finally low-road transfer and high-road transfer showed a significant positive relationship (Ha7). When further analysis took the type of course as the third factor into consideration, the groups from the art course showed low-road transfer significantly greater than the groups from the statistics course (Ha9). But there was no significant difference in high-road transfer for groups from difference courses (H08). There was a significant interaction between level of mindfulness and type of course in low-road transfer (Ha11-1 and Ha11-2). The groups from the art course were influenced significantly more than the groups from the statistics course by different levels of mindful abstraction activities in low-road transfer. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures..............................................................................................................................viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Background............................................................................................................................. 1 Fundamental Educational Goals and Situated Learning................................................. 1 Limitation of Situated Learning...................................................................................... 2 Transfer and Its Mechanism............................................................................................ 3 Two Different Types of Transfer and Situated Learning................................................ 4 Conditions for Successful High-road Transfer ............................................................... 5 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................... 7 Research Questions................................................................................................................. 8 Research Hypotheses .............................................................................................................. 9 Definitions of Terms............................................................................................................. 11 Chapter 2 Literature Review......................................................................................................... 14 Introduction........................................................................................................................... 14 Situated Learning and the Question of Transfer................................................................... 15 Situated Learning Model............................................................................................... 15 The Question of Transfer.............................................................................................. 16 Transfer of Learning ............................................................................................................. 21 Transfer and Its Mechanism.......................................................................................... 21 Two Different Types of Transfer.................................................................................. 23 High-road Transfer and Abstraction Use.............................................................................. 27 Conditions for High-road Transfer ............................................................................... 27 Conditions for Using Abstraction and Analogy for High-road Transfer...................... 29 Summary............................................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 3 Methods and Procedures .............................................................................................. 34 Introduction........................................................................................................................... 34 Participants............................................................................................................................ 34 Attrition......................................................................................................................... 35 Research Design.................................................................................................................... 37 Independent Variables .................................................................................................. 37 Dependent Variables..................................................................................................... 38 Material................................................................................................................................. 38 Content.......................................................................................................................... 42 Tutorial Development ................................................................................................... 44 Tutorial.......................................................................................................................... 45 Treatment .............................................................................................................................. 51 Abstraction Activities ..................................................................................................