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There is a need for effective methods to teach critical thinking. Many studies on other skills have demonstrated beneficial effects of practice that repeatedly induces retrieval processes (repeated retrieval practice). The present experiment investigated whether repeated retrieval practice is effective for fostering critical thinking skills, focusing on avoiding biased reasoning. Seventy-five students first took a pre-test. Subsequently, they were instructed on critical thinking and avoiding belief-bias in syllogistic reasoning and engaged in retrieval practice with syllogisms. Afterwards, depending on the assigned condition, they (1) did not engage in extra retrieval practice; (2) engaged in retrieval practiced a second time (week later); or (3) engaged in retrieval practiced a second (week later) and a third time (two weeks later). Two/three days after the last practice session, all participants took a post-test consisting of practiced tasks (to measure learning relative to the pre-test) and non-practiced (transfer) tasks. Results revealed no significant difference between the pretest and the posttest learning performance as judged by the mean total performance (MC-answers + justification), although participants were, on average, faster on the post-test than on the pre-test. Exploring performance on MC-answers-only suggested that participants did benefit from instruction/practice but may have been unable to justify their answers. Unfortunately, we were unable to test effects on transfer due to a floor effect, which highlights the difficulty of establishing transfer of critical thinking skills. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that addresses repeated retrieval practice effects in the critical thinking domain. Further research should focus on determining the preconditions of repeated retrieval practice effects for this type of tasks.
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This study investigated whether an instructional intervention can increase students’ self-regulated use of retrieval practice in a higher education classroom environment. A lab-experiment by Ariel and Karpicke (2017) revealed that strategy instructions improved students’ self-regulated use of retrieval practice and subsequent test performance. Our goal was to determine whether these effects generalize to a classroom environment using key concepts from marketing communication. We compared two groups on their self-regulated use of retrieval practice using an online environment. An experimental group (n = 58) received strategy instructions on retrieval practice and a control group (n = 58) received neutral instructions. Instructions were provided during sessions 1 and 2; no instructions were provided in a third, transfer session, measuring self-regulated use of retrieval practice. In sessions 1 and 2, no significant differences between groups were found. In the transfer session, the experimental group tested themselves more (Hypothesis 1) and displayed a larger number of (correct) retrieval attempts per key concept (Hypothesis 2) than the control group. No correlations were found with performance (Hypothesis 3). With our experiment, we took a first step in supporting students in their self-regulated use of retrieval practice in a classroom environment with complex materials.
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Retrieval practice enhances long-term retention more than restudying; a phenomenon called the testing effect. The fuzzy trace explanation predicts that a testing effect will already emerge after a short interval when participants are solely provided with semantic cues in the final test. In the present study, we assessed this explanation by gradually reducing the surface features overlap between cues in the learning phase and the final recognition test. In all five experiments, participants in the control/word condition received as final test cues the same words as in the learning phase. The experimental final test cues consisted of scrambled words, words in a new context, scrambled words in a new context (Experiment 1), synonyms (Experiment 2), or images (Experiments 3, 4a, 4b). A short-term testing effect was only observed for the image final test cues. These results do not provide strong support for the fuzzy trace explanation of the testing effect.
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Procrastination – delaying the start or completion of intended work – is extremely common among higher education students. The situation in Materials Science 1 course is a point in case. Students in this course tended to postpone their learning activities until just before the end-of-course assessment. This academic procrastination was problematic because it reduced the effectiveness of the teachers instruction. Specifically, the classes and lessons scheduled in the seven-week Materials Science 1 course feature tasks and exercises designed to produce meaningful knowledge. However, these were considerably less worthwhile when students came unprepared. To prevent this negative effect of academic procrastination, an intervention was designed that should promote retrieval practice and spaced study, and its impact on academic performance was assessed in a randomized field experiment. This article reports on the nature of the intervention and the outcomes of the experiment.
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Academic design research often fails to contribute to design practice. This dissertation explores how design research collaborations can provide knowledge that design professionals will use in practice. The research shows that design professionals are not addressed as an important audience between the many audiences of collaborative research projects. The research provides insight in the learning process by design professionals in design research collaborations and it identifies opportunities for even more learning. It shows that design professionals can learn about more than designing, but also about application domains or project organization.
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Background The testing effect is the finding that information that is retrieved during learning is more often correctly retrieved on a final test than information that is restudied. According to the semantic mediator hypothesis the testing effect arises because retrieval practice of cue-target pairs (mother-child) activates semantically related mediators (father) more than restudying. Hence, the mediator-target (father-child) association should be stronger for retrieved than restudied pairs. Indeed, Carpenter (2011) found a larger testing effect when participants received mediators (father) than when they received target-related words (birth) as final test cues. Methods The present study started as an attempt to test an alternative account of Carpenter’s results. However, it turned into a series of conceptual (Experiment 1) and direct (Experiment 2 and 3) replications conducted with online samples. The results of these online replications were compared with those of similar existing laboratory experiments through small-scale meta-analyses. Results The results showed that (1) the magnitude of the raw mediator testing effect advantage is comparable for online and laboratory experiments, (2) in both online and laboratory experiments the magnitude of the raw mediator testing effect advantage is smaller than in Carpenter’s original experiment, and (3) the testing effect for related cues varies considerably between online experiments. Conclusions The variability in the testing effect for related cues in online experiments could point toward moderators of the related cue short-term testing effect. The raw mediator testing effect advantage is smaller than in Carpenter’s original experiment.
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Lifelong learning is necessary for nurses and caregivers to provide good, person-centred care. To facilitate such learning and embed it into regular working processes, learning communities of practice are considered promising. However, there is little insight into how learning networks contribute to learning exactly and what factors of success can be found. The study is part of a ZonMw-funded research project ‘LeerSaam Noord’ in the Netherlands, which aims to strengthen the professionalization of the nursing workforce and promote person-centred care. We describe what learning in learning communities looks like in four different healthcare contexts during the start-up phase of the research project. A thematic analysis of eleven patient case-discussions in these learning communities took place. In addition, quantitative measurements on learning climate, reciprocity behavior, and perceptions of professional attitude and autonomy, were used to underpin findings. Reflective questioning and discussing professional dilemma's i.e. patient cases in which conflicting interests between the patient and the professional emerge, are of importance for successful learning.
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In this chapter I would like to introduce the knowledge management concept known as communities of practice (CoPs) and show a direct link between CoPs and human resource development (HRD). CoPs are a proven way to effectively manage knowledge as well as promote organizational learning, so it is a logical step to aim HRD initiatives towards developing and supporting them. It is my experience that both the vision and operational goals of an organization’s HR department is exceptionally crucial in designing and supporting a learning organization and that CoPs are one strategy to achieving these goals. The set up of the chapter is as follows; in this section I present some of the advantages that communities can have for the organization and the individual. Then I give an introduction to what CoPs actually are and how they function, followed by a discussion of the link between HRD, CoPs and organizational learning. In section four I look at what kind of support CoPs need in order to thrive and in section five, I expand these concepts to include global communities. The following section looks at how technology enables CoPs – both local and global – and describes general guidelines for deciding which technology is appropriate for facilitating communities. My closing remarks consider the increasing role of Cops in HRM as well as some of their possible down-sides.
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This paper presents a method for Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) to account for the impact of research. The 36 UAS in The Netherlands aim to contribute to global challenges and pressing social issues through practice-based research. Given this aim UAS have a strong responsibility to account for the impact of their research and to show that the public research money is well spent. This paper shows that none of the existing methods for assessing the impact of research are suitable for the research conducted at Dutch UAS. It offers an alternative approach based on narratives supported by empirical evidence.
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