An Example Order for Cognitive Skill Acquisition

This chapter first provides an overview of the various stages of cognitive skill acquisition in order to situate learning from worked-out examples in the course of learning a new skill. It then defines more precisely the meaning of learning from worked-out examples, provides reasons for its effectiveness, and discusses the relevance of self-explanations and instructional explanations as factors moderating the effectiveness of studying examples. It discusses the problem of structuring the transition from studying examples to problem solving. It describes a preliminary instructional model of example-based skill acquisition that currently guides our research. Finally, it outlines a set of research questions intended to guide future research, such as adapting the proposed fading procedure to individual learners.