The impact of representation format and task instruction on student understanding in science

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Title The impact of representation format and task instruction on student understanding in science
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Education
Department Educational Psychology
Author Stephenson, Susan Raatz
Date 2015-08
Description The purpose of this study is to examine how representation format and task instructions impact student learning in a science domain. Learning outcomes were assessed via measures of mental model, declarative knowledge, and knowledge inference. Students were asked to use one of two forms of representation, either drawing or writing, during study of a science text. Further, instructions (summarize vs. explain) were varied to determine if students' intended use of the presentation influenced learning. Thus, this study used a 2 (drawing vs. writing) X 2 (summarize vs. explain) between-subjects design. Drawing was hypothesized to require integration across learning materials regardless of task instructions, because drawings (by definition) require learners to integrate new information into a visual representation. Learning outcomes associated with writing were hypothesized to depend upon task instructions: when asked to summarize, writing should result in reproduction of text; when asked to
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Drawing; Explain; Knowledge integration; Mental model; Summary; Writing
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Science
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Susan Raatz Stephenson 2015
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 26,825 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/3881
ARK ark:/87278/s6hf1414
Setname ir_etd
ID 197432
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6hf1414
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