Abstract

We investigated whether three interventions – studying incorrect worked examples, studying correct worked examples, or receiving feedback – improved children’s 0–1,000 (Experiment 1) and adults’ 1 thousand–1 billion (Experiment 2) number-line estimation precision relative to a no intervention control group. At pretest, participants estimated numbers on number lines (without feedback or examples) and judged their confidence in each estimate. They were then assigned to an intervention group, completed intervention trials, and then estimated numbers and judged their confidence at posttest. Children’s and adults’ confidence judgments did not increase from pretest to posttest. However, consistent with prior research, feedback improved children’s and adults’ estimation precision from pretest-to-posttest. Importantly, studying correct worked examples also improved precision, but studying incorrect worked examples did not. Although not all children benefited from training, those who did were able to transfer their knowledge to a number-categorization task. Adults in the feedback group were also able to transfer their learning. These outcomes highlight benefits of studying worked examples for improving children’s and adults’ estimation precision, but to obtain benefits, corrective feedback must be included.

摘要

我们调查了三种干预措施——研究不正确的工作示例、研究正确的工作示例或接收反馈——是否提高了儿童的 0-1,000（实验 1）和成人的 1000-10 亿（实验 2）数线估计精度相对于没有干预对照组。在预测试中，参与者估计数轴上的数字（没有反馈或示例）并判断他们对每个估计的信心。然后他们被分配到一个干预组，完成干预试验，然后估计人数并在后测中判断他们的信心。从前测到后测，儿童和成人的信心判断并没有增加。然而，与之前的研究一致，反馈提高了儿童和成人从前测到后测的估计精度。重要的，研究正确的工作示例也提高了精度，但研究不正确的工作示例却没有。虽然并非所有的孩子都从培训中受益，但那些接受培训的孩子能够将他们的知识转移到数字分类任务中。反馈组中的成年人也能够迁移他们的学习。这些结果突出了研究实例对提高儿童和成人估计精度的好处，但要获得好处，必须包括纠正性反馈。