9 How Much and What Type of Guidance is Optimal for Learning ...

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How Much and What Type of Guidance is Optimal? 171(e.g., Pintrich & Schunk, 2002) and did not test hypotheses concerning theimpact of increasing amounts of varied practice or declarative knowledge. Additionalresearch on these two variables would be valuable if they were systematicallyvaried in future studies.Varied practice must also be accompanied by corrective and supportive feedbackso that students do not acquire misconceptions that must be unlearnedlater.01234567890123456789012345678901234563 Guidance Requires Forced Individual Application Practice ofProcedures Accompanied by Immediate Corrective Feedback on PartandWhole- Task Versions of Problems and Tasks that Represent Thoseto be Encountered in the Transfer EnvironmentGuidance advocates suggest that effective instruction must provide the opportunityfor students to apply the procedures they have seen demonstrated in forcedand guided practice exercises where they receive immediate corrective feedbackon their performance. Clark and Blake (1997) and Feldon (2007) argue thatadaptability can be taught in a way that facilitates the solution of novel and challengingproblems. De Corte (2003); Druckman and Swets (1988); Masui and DeCorte (1999); Merrill (2002); Perkins and Grotzer (1997); Rosenshine andMeister (1997); Slavin (2006). Rosenshine and Meister (1997) and Rosenshineand Stevens (1986) have described the research base supporting guided practicewith feedback and have provided guidelines for constructing demonstration andpractice exercises in classroom settings.The problems and tasks provided during practice exercises must be representativeof the population of problems and tasks they will be expected to tackleafter instruction. Since most transfer environments require task performancerather than the recall of facts, practice must follow a demonstration or workedexample of a forced procedure and require the application of the procedure inorder to complete a task and/or solve a problem. Corrective feedback must befrequent enough so that students do not learn errors. In addition, a meta- analysisof feedback studies conducted in many nations by Kluger and DiNisi (1998)indicated that the most feedback must be focused on the effectiveness of thestrategy being used by a student during practice and not comment on whether astudent is “wrong.”Constructivist Views on Practice and FeedbackConstructivist approaches to learning environments support practice and feedbackbut in a more limited form, often depending on the type of learning task. Intheir description of constructivism, Savery and Duffy (2001) suggest that the useof practice and feedback depend on the goal of a learning experience:Thus if domain- specific problem solving is the skill to be learned then a simulationwhich confronts the learner with problem situations within thatdomain might be appropriate. If proficient typing is required for some larger
172 R. E. Clarkcontext, certainly a drill and practice program is one option that might bepresent.(p. 6)Shabo (1997) describes a series of constructivist hypermedia projects whereteachers found it necessary to increase the feedback provided to students because“The problem was that learners received little feedback to guide them on how touse the non- linear structure, and not all could acquire important skills andknowledge of the subject matter” (p. 231). Goodman, Wood, and Hendrickx(2004) present evidence from a large study where the prior knowledge of studentswas assessed and many different types of outcome measures wereemployed. They conclude that “increasing the specificity of feedback positivelyaffected practice performance” (p. 248), but noted that feedback had to beaccompanied by varied practice in order to promote transfer of learning.The difference between constructivist and guidance advocates appears to beabout whether practice and feedback is task- specific and at what point practiceand feedback should be faded or eliminated as expertise develops. The suggestionthat only certain types of learning tasks require practice and feedback requiresmore systematic research. Both constructivist and guidance advocates agree thatas students gain more prior knowledge they sometimes require a gradual fadingof practice and feedback, but the research and measurement technology availableto support fading makes clear prescriptions difficult.Fading Guidance and the Measurement of Prior Knowledge and ExpertiseMany instructional theories recommend the fading of guidance and scaffolding asexpertise increases. These same theories recommend against providing proceduralguidance including practice and feedback to learners who have already achievedadvanced expertise on the class or domain of tasks and problems that characterizenew skills to be learned. Since the 1920s we have had evidence that guidance interactswith prior knowledge (Shulman & Keisler, 1966). In a comprehensive reviewof studies where aptitudes interact with instructional methods, Cronbach andSnow (1977) and Gustafsson and Undheim (1996) described many studies wherethe amount of “structure” in instruction interacted with prior knowledge andgeneral ability. In fact, after reviewing hundreds of studies spanning a half- century,they concluded that the most robust interactions occurred between prior knowledgeand general ability on the one hand, and prior knowledge and instructionalstructure on the other. According to Gustafsson and Undheim (1996),Treatments with a high degree of structure exercise a high level of externalcontrol of the learning activities through control of the sequence of pacing,feedback and reinforcement . . . tasks are broken down into small units andpresentations are concrete and explicit. Instructional methods characterizedas expository, direct instruction, teacher controlled or drill- and-practice areinstances of high structure.(p. 227)1234567891111111111222222222233333333334444444
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