Educators aim to equip students with learning strategies they can apply when approaching new problems on their own. Teaching design-thinking strategies may support this goal. A first test would show that the strategies are good for learning and that students spontaneously transfer them beyond classroom instruction. To examine this, we introduce choice-based assessments (CBAs). CBAs measure how people learn when there is minimal guidance and they must make decisions as independent learners. Here, sixth-grade students completed multiple design activities that emphasized either seeking constructive criticism or exploring a space of alternatives. Afterward, they completed the CBAs, which measured strategy transfer. Results showed that lower-achieving students benefitted most from instruction, exhibiting a relative increase in their use of design-thinking strategies. In addition, strategy choices correlated with prior achievement measures and appeared to mediate performance in and learning from the CBAs. The choices to use the two strategies themselves were not correlated, which indicates that they are not subsets of a larger construct, such as growth mindset. In sum, CBAs enabled a double demonstration: design-thinking strategies may improve learning and problem solving, and design-thinking instruction may improve the likelihood of lower-achieving students choosing to use effective strategies in novel settings that require new learning.

教育者旨在为学生提供在他们自己解决新问题时可以应用的学习策略。教学设计思想策略可能支持该目标。第一次测试将显示该策略对学习有益，并且学生自发地将其转移到课堂教学之外。为了对此进行研究，我们引入了基于选择的评估（CBA）。CBA在最小的指导下衡量人们的学习方式，他们必须作为独立学习者做出决策。在这里，六年级的学生完成了多项设计活动，这些活动着重于寻求建设性的批评或探索替代空间。之后，他们完成了CBA，以评估战略转移。结果表明，学习成绩差的学生从教学中受益最大，展示了他们使用设计思想策略的相对增长。此外，策略选择与先前的成就衡量指标相关，并且似乎可以介导CBA中的绩效并向其学习。使用这两种策略本身的选择没有相关性，这表明它们不是更大构想的子集，例如增长心态。总而言之，CBA进行了双重演示：设计思想策略可以改善学习和解决问题的能力，而设计思想指导则可以提高成绩较低的学生选择在需要新学习的新颖环境中使用有效策略的可能性。使用这两种策略本身的选择没有相关性，这表明它们不是更大构想的子集，例如增长心态。总而言之，CBA进行了双重演示：设计思想策略可以改善学习和解决问题的能力，而设计思想指导则可以提高成绩较低的学生选择在需要新学习的新颖环境中使用有效策略的可能性。使用这两种策略本身的选择没有相关性，这表明它们不是更大构想的子集，例如增长心态。总而言之，CBA进行了双重演示：设计思想策略可以改善学习和解决问题的能力，而设计思想指导则可以提高成绩较低的学生选择在需要新学习的新颖环境中使用有效策略的可能性。