TY - GEN
T1 - Pre-college electrical engineering instruction
T2 - 39th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference: Imagining and Engineering Future CSET Education, FIE 2009
AU - Moreno, Roxana
AU - Reisslein, Martin
AU - Ozogul, Gamze
PY - 2009/12/1
Y1 - 2009/12/1
N2 - Pre-college students were randomly assigned to learn about electrical circuit analysis with an instructional program that included two problem solving practice conditions. In the first condition, students learned to solve parallel circuit problems that were contextualized around real electrical devices and represented with realistic diagrams. In the second condition, students learned to solve the same problems except that they were de-contextualized and represented with abstract diagrams. To measure learning, students were given near and far transfer problem solving tests. In addition, students' learning perceptions were measured using a program-rating survey that included three subscales: overall program usefulness, problem representation usefulness, and perceived cognitive load. Students who learned with abstract problems produced higher scores on the near transfer test and made better problem representations during problem solving than those who learned with contextualized problems. The contextualized group gave marginally higher ratings for the program representation usefulness. The findings suggest that abstract electrical circuit representations promote better learning because they facilitate thinking about a variety of problem contexts.
AB - Pre-college students were randomly assigned to learn about electrical circuit analysis with an instructional program that included two problem solving practice conditions. In the first condition, students learned to solve parallel circuit problems that were contextualized around real electrical devices and represented with realistic diagrams. In the second condition, students learned to solve the same problems except that they were de-contextualized and represented with abstract diagrams. To measure learning, students were given near and far transfer problem solving tests. In addition, students' learning perceptions were measured using a program-rating survey that included three subscales: overall program usefulness, problem representation usefulness, and perceived cognitive load. Students who learned with abstract problems produced higher scores on the near transfer test and made better problem representations during problem solving than those who learned with contextualized problems. The contextualized group gave marginally higher ratings for the program representation usefulness. The findings suggest that abstract electrical circuit representations promote better learning because they facilitate thinking about a variety of problem contexts.
KW - Abstract representation
KW - Cognitive learning theory
KW - Contextualized representation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77951476810&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=77951476810&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2009.5350640
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2009.5350640
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:77951476810
SN - 9781424447152
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - 39th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference
Y2 - 18 October 2009 through 21 October 2009
ER -