Dyadic-Explanations During Preparatory Self-Study Enhance Learning: A Randomised Controlled Study.

Rotgans, Jerome I; Cleland, Jennifer A

PURPOSE The objective of the present study was to investigate to which extent preparatory self-study can be improved by encouraging students to engage in individual self-explanations or dyadic-explanations (that is, in pairs). Individual self-explanations refer to an act of metacognition in which students, after having processed a certain amount of information, attempt to explain their understanding to themselves of what was just learned. Dyadic-explanations refer to the same process, but instead of explaining to oneself, the student explains his/her understanding to another student. METHOD An experiment was conducted in which 120 medical students studied a video-recorded lecture on the role of protein synthesis inhibition on memory reconsolidation. Participants were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: (1) a control condition in which they listened to the lecture once; (2) a control condition in which they listened to the lecture twice; (3) an experimental condition in which they had to listen to the lecture and provide self-explanations individually; and (4) an experimental condition in which they had to listen to the lecture and provide dyadic-explanations. Participants' knowledge regarding the topic was measured three times; at the start and end of the experiment, and one week after the experiment to determine knowledge retention. Data were analysed by means of a 2*2 and 4*3 repeated-measures ANOVA. RESULTS The results suggest that participants who engaged in individual self- or dyadic-explanations significantly outperformed participants in the two control conditions in terms of learning and retention (F = 5.67, Wilks Λ = 0.94, P = 0.019, η2 = 0.05). Moreover, the results suggest that dyadic-explanations were more effective than individual self-explanations (F = 3.70, Wilks Λ = 0.83, P = 0.002, η2 = 0.09). CONCLUSIONS These outcomes suggest that encouraging students to work in pairs or in small teams to prepare for a learning event results in superior preparation and learning.