The current study examined whether the learning benefits of pretesting--like those produced by posttesting--generalize to classroom settings, and whether such benefits transfer to non-pretested related information. Before some lectures but not others, undergraduate students enrolled in a large research methods class were given a brief competitive…

There have been several rather counterintuitive phenomena observed in different fields of research that compared the performance of experts and novices. For example, studies of medical expertise demonstrated that less experienced medical students may in some situations outperform seasoned medical practitioners on recall of specific cases. Studies…

Research on Problem-Based Learning in medical education has undergone an evolutionary process from initial proof of concept studies through critiques of the original methods and beyond. Initial studies focused on whether or not the instructional method was effective for medical students and the goals of medical education. Despite much movement…

The development of two dominant research traditions is described: students' approaches to learning (SAL) and information processing (IP). The development of the third tradition, self-regulated learning (SRL) is added. SAL is based on European research, whereas IP and SRL are more typical background ideas for North-American research. The most…

Students' scores on questionnaires concerning their approaches to studying in higher education exhibit reasonable stability over time, moderate convergent validity with their scores on other questionnaires, and reasonable levels of discriminating power and criterion-related validity. Nevertheless, the internal consistency of the constituent scales…