To agree or to disagree: how surprise and exposure to peer predictions can influence learning from explicit prediction: A first insight into potential social influences on memory when learning from predictions

Asking learners to predict the answer to introductory questions is a popular teaching strategy in classroom settings. These explicit predictions work particularly well when learning highly expected and highly surprising facts, compared to moderately surprising facts. However, in a regular classroom, some students might be asked to predict out-loud, and it is unclear how seeing or hearing other’s answers can affect learning from explicit prediction. We theorized that the effects of peers could differ depending on how much the answer of the other person is in line with our own answer. In the current study, 93 participants predicted the answers to 100 numerical facts (e.g., ? out of 10 deserts consist of sand). Before seeing the correct answer, the participants were shown the answer of a peer. The results showed that learners remembered highly unsurprising and highly surprising facts well compared to moderately surprising facts. This replication of a U-shaped effect of surprise, or...Show moreAsking learners to predict the answer to introductory questions is a popular teaching strategy in classroom settings. These explicit predictions work particularly well when learning highly expected and highly surprising facts, compared to moderately surprising facts. However, in a regular classroom, some students might be asked to predict out-loud, and it is unclear how seeing or hearing other’s answers can affect learning from explicit prediction. We theorized that the effects of peers could differ depending on how much the answer of the other person is in line with our own answer. In the current study, 93 participants predicted the answers to 100 numerical facts (e.g., ? out of 10 deserts consist of sand). Before seeing the correct answer, the participants were shown the answer of a peer. The results showed that learners remembered highly unsurprising and highly surprising facts well compared to moderately surprising facts. This replication of a U-shaped effect of surprise, or expectation-violation, shows that the effects of expectations also hold when learners are interrupted by the answer of a peer. Furthermore, there was a lack of interaction between expectancy-violation and disagreement, which shows that disagreement does not specifically interfere with the mechanisms of expectancy-violation. Results also showed that the strength of disagreement negatively affects memory; seeing answers that are not in line with one’s own prediction hinder learning. We also assessed the moderating effects of estimation self-efficacy and influenceability. While the effects of expectancy-violation and disagreement were not affected by self-efficacy, influenceability negatively affects the effects of disagreement. This suggests that learners who are more easily socially influenced, are affected more by the negative effects of disagreement than less influenceable learners. These findings provide novel insights into the combined influence of cognitive and social mechanisms when learning from explicit prediction, providing deeper understanding of how to create engaging learning opportunities.Show less

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To agree or to disagree: how surprise and exposure to peer predictions can influence learning from explicit prediction: A first insight into potential social influences on memory when learning from predictions