Learning and Instruction

Schema abstraction with productive failure and analogical comparison

Among 96 ninth-grade students, comparing climate models with models from other domains improved far transfer. Both productive-failure classes learned.

Read the paper

First page of the Learning and Instruction article on schema abstraction and productive failure. — First page of the journal article, from the University of Sydney repository.

The idea

A schema is useful when it travels into a domain the student has not studied. This classroom study taught complex systems and climate change with agent-based models under two productive-failure designs. In both, students explored a problem before teacher-led instruction. One group used climate models only. The other compared those climate models with complexity models from other domains.

The approach

The classes were ninth grade at a high-achieving Australian girls' school: 114 students enrolled, 96 in the final analysis after missing tests were removed. Both groups gained on declarative knowledge, explanatory knowledge, and within-domain near transfer. The two-model group, which had to compare across domains, scored higher on an across-domain far-transfer problem.

114 ninth-grade students enrolled, 96 in the final analysis
Both designs start with productive failure, then teacher instruction
One climate model, or climate models compared with models from other domains
Both groups gained on knowledge and near transfer
The comparison group scored higher on far transfer
Jacobson, Goldwater, Markauskaite, Lai, Kapur, Roberts, and Hilton. Learning and Instruction, 65, 101222

The paper: hdl.handle.net .