When learning a new concept, should students engage in problem solving followed by instruction (PS-I) or instruction followed by problem solving (I-PS)? Noting that there is a passionate debate about the design of initial learning, we report evidence from a meta-analysis of 53 studies with 166 comparisons that compared PS-I with I-PS design. Our results showed a significant, moderate effect in favor of PS-I (Hedge’s g 0.36 [95% confidence interval 0.20; 0.51]). The effects were even stronger (Hedge’s g ranging between 0.37 and 0.58) when PS-I was implemented with high fidelity to the principles of Productive Failure (PF), a subset variant of PS-I design. Students’ grade level, intervention time span, and its (quasi-)experimental nature contributed to the efficacy of PS-I over I-PS designs. Contrasting trends were, however, observed for younger age learners (second to fifth graders) and for the learning of domain-general skills, for which effect sizes favored I-PS. Overall, an estimation of true effect sizes after accounting for publication bias suggested a strong effect size favoring PS-I (Hedge’s g 0.87).

在学习一个新概念时，学生应该先解决问题再指导（PS-I）还是先指导后解决问题（I-PS）？注意到关于初始学习设计的激烈辩论，我们报告了来自 53 项研究的荟萃分析的证据，其中有 166 项比较，将 PS-I 与 I-PS 设计进行比较。我们的结果显示了有利于 PS-I 的显着、中等效果（Hedge's g 0.36 [95% 置信区间 0.20；0.51]）。当 PS-I 以高保真生产失败 (PF) 原则（PS-I 设计的子集变体）实施时，效果甚至更强（Hedge 的 g 范围在 0.37 和 0.58 之间）。学生的年级水平、干预时间跨度及其（准）实验性质有助于 PS-I 优于 I-PS 设计。然而，相反的趋势是，观察到年龄较小的学习者（二至五年级学生）和领域通用技能的学习，其效果大小有利于 I-PS。总体而言，在考虑发表偏倚后对真实效应量的估计表明强效应量有利于 PS-I（Hedge's g 0.87）。