Teacher-Directed Learning Approaches and Science Achievement: Investigating the Importance of Instructional Explanations in Australian Schools

This study investigated the relationships of teacher-directed approaches with science achievement in Australian schools. The data for this study were drawn from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 database and analysed using multilevel modelling (MLM). MLMs were estimated to test the contribution of each item to students’ science achievement scores and to estimate the mediation effect of teacher explanations on these relationships. Only explicit, teacher-directed practices demonstrated a significant, positive association with science achievement. The positive, significant nature of the item ‘the teacher explains scientific ideas’ (B = 29.61, p < 0.001) suggested that this practice should take place in all science lessons. In the mediation model, the explicit, teacher-directed approaches in the inquiry scale revealed a significant indirect effect on science achievement, through the process of the teacher explaining scientific ideas. This indicated that effective explanations also underpin other instructional approaches such as contextualised science learning. These findings, accompanied by an analysis of the teacher-directed items and their relationships to science outcomes, give teachers and policymakers clear guidance regarding the effective use of instructional explanations in the science classroom.

Example-based learning: should learners receive closed-book or open-book self-explanation prompts?

In learning from examples, students are often first provided with basic instructional explanations of new principles and concepts and second with examples thereof. In this sequence, it is important that learners self-explain by generating links between the basic instructional explanations’ content and the examples. Therefore, it is well established that learners receive self-explanation prompts. However, there is hardly any research on whether these prompts should be provided in a closed-book format—in which learners cannot access the basic instructional explanations during self-explaining and thus have to retrieve the main content of the instructional explanations that is needed to explain the examples from memory (i.e., retrieval practice)—or in an open-book format in which learners can access the instructional explanations during self-explaining. In two experiments, we varied whether learners received closed- or open-book self-explanation prompts. We also varied whether learners were prompted to actively process the main content of the basic instructional explanations before they proceeded to the self-explanation prompts. When the learners were not prompted to actively process the basic instructional explanations, closed-book prompts yielded detrimental effects on immediate and delayed (1 week) posttest performance. When the learners were prompted to actively process the basic instructional explanations beforehand, closed-book self-explanation prompts were not less beneficial than open-book prompts regarding performance on a delayed posttest. We conclude that at least when the retention interval does not exceed 1 week, closed-book self-explanation prompts do not entail an added value and can even be harmful in comparison to open-book ones.

Tell and Let Know: A Corpus-Based Study

This paper is based on research into the usage of the terms tell and let know, using data from the British National Corpus of English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The differences between them, as well as the extent and character of their synonymy, are analyzed through corpus distribution and semantic preferences. The results indicate subtle differences between the terms. Though they are partially synonymous, tell is more often selected in reference to anecdotal and incidental transmission of information, such as when discussing past events, and thus has a wider idiomatic usage. Let know replaces tell in cases of direct requests, offers or demands. It is hypothesized that this may result from the inherent indirectness of the term when compared to tell, and thus its perceived politeness. The study also demonstrates the use of corpora to increase effectiveness of instructional explanations of differences in usage between similar terms. 本論文は、 British National Corpus of English及びCorpus of Contemporary American Englishのデータから、現代英語にて「tell」及び「let know」の用語使用を調べた研究に基づいたものである。それぞれのコーパス内の分布や意味表現の考察を通し、相互の違いや類似の範囲や特性を分析する。研究の結果から用語の微妙な違いが示される。用語は部分的には同義であるが、「tell」は、比較的に、過去または偶発的事柄の伝達に使われることが多く、幅広く慣用句として使用されている。「let know」は、直接的依頼や、提案、要求の場合、「tell」の代わりに使用される。 「tell」と比較して、この用語が元々持つ間接的もしくは受動性が礼儀正しいものと認識されていることに起因するものと仮定される。また、本研究では、類似する言い回しの違いの説明を授業で効果的にするコーパスの使用例を示す。