{"pk":30808,"title":"Empirical Analyses of Self-Explanation and Transfer in Learning to Program","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Building upon recent work on production system models of transfer and analysis-based generalization techniques, we present analyses of three studies of learning to program recursion. In Experiment 1, a production system model was used to identify problem solving that involved previously acquired skills or required novel solutions. A mathematical model based on this analysis accounts for inter-problem transfer. Programming performance was also affected by particular examples presented in instruction. Experiment 2 examined these example effects in finer detail. Using a production system analysis, examples were found to affect the initial error rates, but not the learning rates on cognitive skills. Experiment 3 examined relations between the ways in which people explain examples to themselves and subsequent learning. Results suggest that good learners engage in more metacognition, generate more domain-specific elaborations of examples, make connections between examples and abstract text, and focus on the semantics of programs rather than syntax.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Paper Presentations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5d30m4kj","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Peter","middle_name":"","last_name":"Pirolli","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, Berkeley","department":""},{"first_name":"Kate","middle_name":"","last_name":"Bielaczyc","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, Berkeley","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1989-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/30808/galley/20657/download/"}]}