Understanding how young adolescents and young adults learn can give important insight to improve education. A way to enhance learning in educational practice is the use of Generative learning...Show moreUnderstanding how young adolescents and young adults learn can give important insight to improve education. A way to enhance learning in educational practice is the use of Generative learning strategies (GLS’s), such as generating predictions. The present study aims to investigate whether learning by making predictions or repeating is more effective. It also seeks to examine potential interactions between age and instructional methods and the role of curiosity. Additionally, the neural mechanisms are explored, to gain better understanding of learning processes across ages. In the first study a numerical fact learning task was used to compare learning in two conditions (repeat vs. generating predictions) across young adolescents (11-13 years) and young adults (20-25). In the second study the same paradigm was used in an fMRI setting to explore neural correlates involved in different instructional conditions (repeat vs. prediction). Main findings showed that adults score higher in both conditions compared to adolescents. However, adolescents benefited more from generating predictions compared to adults. For adults no difference between the two conditions was found in the first study, whereas repeating improved learning in the second study. The second study found extended activation in the ACC, hippocampus and striatum in the prediction condition, compared to repetition. No effect was found for curiosity on learning. Together the two studies suggest that generating predictions can be an effective strategy for promoting learning for children, whereas mnemonic strategies such as repetition might be more effective for adults The results highlight the importance of considering age-related differences in instructional strategies related to their underlying meta-cognitive abilities and neural correlates. Further research is needed to investigate to what extend different underlying meta cognitive functions (such as feedback processing, surprise and curiosity) contribute to the effectiveness of generating predictions.Show less
The goal of this study is to do a follow-up study of the research that Brod and Breitwieser (2019) did to get a better understanding of the added value of prediction as a learning strategy and the...Show moreThe goal of this study is to do a follow-up study of the research that Brod and Breitwieser (2019) did to get a better understanding of the added value of prediction as a learning strategy and the part that curiosity seems to play. In this study a comparison will be made between early adolescents and adults. This was done with a computer task where participants learned facts in two conditions. A prediction condition where they made predictions and a postdiction condition in which the participants, after seeing the correct answer, answered what they would have thought the answer was. The participants also completed a questionnaire to measure their curiosity as a trait. In this study was found that adults overall scored higher than the early adolescents. Beside this, there were no significant findings about the difference between prediction and postdiction. There were also no significant findings about curiosity as trait. In future research it seems important to include factors as surprise into the study.Show less
New technological developments in the current educational setting make it possible to optimize the layout of a text, regarding reading time and reading comprehension. Such a new development in the...Show moreNew technological developments in the current educational setting make it possible to optimize the layout of a text, regarding reading time and reading comprehension. Such a new development in the field of reading is the Beeline reader. In the current study we examined the effects this reader has on reading time and comprehension while reading a digital text, for students from the University of Leiden (N = 19). Also considered the layout of the text, in which the length (long or short) and vertical distance (single or double) of the sentences differ within four conditions: short-single, short-double, long-single and long-double. Participants read regular and Beeline digital texts within all four conditions, while we measured their eyemovements. Afterwards they answered questions about the texts. No advantages were observed for the use of the Beeline reader, for reading time and comprehension. However, a significant effect was found for text layout for both regular and Beeline texts, regarding reading time. The observed trade-off between reading time and layout suggests that a long sentence length and single vertical line spacing induces more reading time. Whereas a layout with a long sentence length and double vertical line spacing (long-double) results in significant less reading time. Comprehension question were also answered most correct within the long-double layout, although a main effect for layout wasn’t found. These findings will be discussed and recommendations will be made regarding future research.Show less
