Abstracts - Earli

examples, efficiency continued to increase. These results suggest that process information shouldinitially be offered in worked examples and then faded in order to enhance learning.Fading process-related support: The role of distributed monitoring for the acquisition of cognitiveskillsChristof Wecker, University of Munich, GermanyFrank Fischer, University of Munich, GermanyForms of process-related support developed to foster the acquisition of knowledge and skills, suchas scripts, exonerate learners from the responsibility for the control of their performance, therebycutting down opportunities to practice an important component of cognitive skills. The fading ofscripts gradually opens the room for learners to take over control, but still does not ensure thatlearners acquire the necessary knowledge before the script components disappear. Distributedmonitoring of the adherence to the steps of the script, such as feedback by a learning partner, mayhelp learners to internalize the strategy contained in the script. In this study we tested theassumption that only the combination of fading and additional support such as distributedmonitoring fosters the acquisition of declarative and procedural knowledge underlying a cognitiveskill such as producing counterarguments in online discussions. In an experimental 2x2 designwith the factors fading and distributed monitoring, 120 students of education wrote critical repliesto theory-based analyses of cases from educational practice on an online discussion board withsupport by a script, and answered post-tests on declarative and procedural knowledge underlyingthe cognitive skill to produce counterarguments. The results support the hypothesis that only thecombination of fading and distributed monitoring rather than these factors alone foster theacquisition of declarative knowledge underlying the skill, while the corresponding hypothesisconcerning procedural knowledge receives no support by our data. On a more general level, theresults indicate that collaboration can be used to support the transition from guided practice to selfdirectedperformance of skills.Faded worked-out examples in an intelligent tutoring system: Do they further improve learning?Alexander Renkl, University of Freiburg, GermanyRolf Schwonke, University of Freiburg, GermanyJoerg Wittwer, University of Freiburg, GermanyCarmen Krieg, University of Freiburg, GermanyVinvent Aleven, Carnegie Mellon University, USARon Salden, Carnegie Mellon University, USAMany studies have shown that learning from worked-out examples is more effective and efficientin initial cognitive skill acquisition than learning by problem solving (worked-example effect). Asworked-out examples lose their positive effects when the learners’ competence increases, it isespecially effective to employ faded worked-out examples (i.e., first fully worked-out examples,then incompletely worked-out examples, and finally problems to-be-solved). Recently, thegenerality of the worked-example effect has been challenged. Some authors (e.g., McLaren, Lim,Gagnon, Yaron, & Koedinger, 2006; Koedinger & Aleven, in press) argued that there is noadditional benefit of worked-out examples in compared to well-supported problem solving, asimplemented, for example, in intelligent tutoring systems such as Cognitive Tutors. In order to testthis objection, we conducted two experiments in which we compared two versions of a CognitiveTutor. A standard version presented only problems to-be-solved. A faded-example versionincluded worked-out steps that were gradually removed. In both versions, we supported thelearners by self-explanation prompts. In both experiments, we had German high-school students– 600 –