{"pk":31789,"title":"The Contributinos of Studying Examples and Solving Problems to Skill Acquisition","subtitle":null,"abstract":"There is little doubt that examples play a major\nrole in acquiring a n e w skill. H o w examples improve\nlearning, however, is subject to some debate. Re-\ncently, two different classes of theories have been pro-\nposed to explain w h y examples are such an effective\nmanner of learning. Example Generalization m o d -\nels suggest that problem solving rules are acquired\nwhile studying examples. Knowledge Compilation\nmodels, on the other hand, suggest that examples\nare useful because they guide future problem solv-\ning, where the necessary rules are created. Consis-\ntent with knowledge compilation models, w e found\nthat separating target problems from source exam-\nples hindered learning because the source exeimples\ncould not be remembered to guide problem solving.\nW e also found that if sources are not accessible or re-\nm e m b e r e d during problem solving, learning occurs\nbest w h e n the sources are problems to be solved,\nrather than examples. Taken together, these results\nprovide strong support for the knowledge compilation\nview: in order for an example to be most effective,\nthe knowledge gained from the example must be ap-\nplied to solving a new problem.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Submitted Presentations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/71d733c9","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"J.","middle_name":"Gregory","last_name":"Trafton","name_suffix":"","institution":"Princeton University","department":""},{"first_name":"Brian","middle_name":"J.","last_name":"Reiser","name_suffix":"","institution":"Northwestern University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1993-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/31789/galley/22857/download/"}]}