Training Executive Functions to Improve Academic Achievement: Tackling Avenues to Far Transfer.

The aim of training executive functions is usually to improve the ability to attain real-life goals such as academic achievement, that is, far transfer. Although many executive function trainings are successful in improving executive functions, far transfer is more difficult to achieve (cf. Diamond and Lee, 2011; Sala and Gobet, 2020). In this perspective article, we focus on the transfer of executive function training to academic performance. First, we disentangle possible sources of transfer problems. We argue that executive functions can facilitate academic performance via two specific pathways, namely learning-related behaviors and learning-related cognitions. Further, we discuss how domain-specific factors (e.g., task-specific demands and prior knowledge) may influence the successful application of executive functions to learning in this domain. Second, we discuss how the school setting can be used to enhance executive function training with approaches to facilitating far transfer to academic achievement. Specifically, we suggest that training executive functions as a means to improve academic performance is most promising in young students, for whom both behavioral and domain-specific cognitive demands of formal schooling are quite novel challenges. Furthermore, we outline that students could be supported in far transfer of trained executive functions by being informed of the specific relevance of these skills for learning-related behaviors and by having them practice executive functions under such authentic conditions. Moreover, we suggest that in order to promote ongoing effects of executive function training beyond short-term interventions, teachers should be equipped to consider the specific executive function components that might facilitate and support students' acquisition of a particular subject matter.

Assisting students' writing with computer-based concept map feedback: A validation study of the CohViz feedback system.

CohViz is a feedback system that provides students with concept maps as feedback on the cohesion of their writing. Although previous studies demonstrated the effectiveness of CohViz, the accuracy of CohViz remains unclear. Thus, we conducted two comprehensive validation studies to assess the accuracy of CohViz in terms of its reliability and validity. In a reliability study, we compared the concept maps generated by CohViz with concept maps generated by four human expert raters based on a text corpus comprising students' explanatory texts (N = 100). Regarding the depiction of cohesion gaps, we obtained high accordance between the CohViz concept maps and the concept maps generated by the human expert raters. However, CohViz tended to overestimate the number of relations within the concept maps. In a validity study, we examined the validity of CohViz and compared central features of the CohViz concept maps with convergent linguistic features and divergent linguistic features based on a Wikipedia text corpus (N = 1020). We found medium to high agreement with the convergent cohesion features and low agreement with the divergent features. Together, these findings suggest that CohViz can be regarded as an accurate feedback system to provide feedback on the cohesion of students' writing.

Mathematics is practice or argumentation: Mindset priming impacts principle- and procedure-orientation of teachers' explanations.

In this article we introduce the notion of mindset as a situationally contingent perspective on teaching mathematics. Mindsets create a readiness to act intellectually in a particular manner. We propose that mindsets can explain teachers' inclination to adopt a procedure-oriented approach to teaching mathematics that is prevailing in many classrooms. To investigate the mindset hypothesis, we conducted 3 experiments. In Study 1 (N = 97), preservice mathematics teachers read 1 of 3 comics depicting common classroom scenarios. Results showed that the comics were comprehended as intended. In Study 2 (N = 62), preservice mathematics teachers were incidentally presented 1 of the comics as a prime. Subsequently, they drafted an explanation about an extremum problem. Preservice teachers primed with a math-club comic generated more principle-oriented and less procedure-oriented explanations, whereas preservice teachers primed with a math-test-prep or school-trip-planning comic generated more procedure-oriented and less principle-oriented explanations. Study 3 (N = 54) successfully replicated the main findings of Study 2 with experienced inservice teachers who were assumed to have developed automated routines in giving explanations. We conclude that the information the comics contained about the social practices surrounding mathematics triggered teachers' readiness to either include or omit principled or procedural information when drafting explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Mind the gap! Automated concept map feedback supports students in writing cohesive explanations.

Many students are challenged with the demand of writing cohesive explanations. To support students in writing cohesive explanations, we developed a computer-based feedback tool that visualizes cohesion deficits of students' explanations in a concept map. We conducted three studies to investigate the effectiveness of such feedback as well as the underlying cognitive processes. In Study 1, we found that the concept map helped students identify potential cohesion gaps in their drafts and plan remedial revisions. In Study 2, students with concept map feedback conducted revisions that resulted in more locally and globally cohesive, and also more comprehensible, explanations than the explanations of students who revised without concept map feedback. In Study 3, we replicated the findings of Study 2 by and large. More importantly, students who had received concept map feedback on a training explanation 1 week later wrote a transfer explanation without feedback that was more cohesive than the explanation of students who had received no feedback on their training explanation. The automated concept map feedback appears to particularly support the evaluation phase of the revision process. Furthermore, the feedback enabled novice writers to acquire sustainable skills in writing cohesive explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record

Bothered by abstractness or engaged by cohesion? Experts' explanations enhance novices' deep-learning.

Experts' explanations have been shown to better enhance novices' transfer as compared with advanced students' explanations. Based on research on expertise and text comprehension, we investigated whether the abstractness or the cohesion of experts' and intermediates' explanations accounted for novices' learning. In Study 1, we showed that the superior cohesion of experts' explanations accounted for most of novices' transfer, whereas the degree of abstractness did not impact novices' transfer performance. In Study 2, we investigated novices' processing while learning with experts' and intermediates' explanations. We found that novices studying experts' explanations actively self-regulated their processing of the explanations, as they showed mainly deep-processing activities, whereas novices learning with intermediates' explanations were mainly engaged in shallow-processing activities by paraphrasing the explanations. Thus, we concluded that subject-matter expertise is a crucial prerequisite for instructors. Despite the abstract character of experts' explanations, their subject-matter expertise enables them to generate highly cohesive explanations that serve as a valuable scaffold for students' construction of flexible knowledge by engaging them in deep-level processing.

Preparing learners with partly incorrect intuitive prior knowledge for learning.

Learners sometimes have incoherent and fragmented intuitive prior knowledge that is (partly) "incompatible" with the to-be-learned contents. Such knowledge in pieces can cause conceptual disorientation and cognitive overload while learning. We hypothesized that a pre-training intervention providing a generalized schema as a structuring framework for such knowledge in pieces would support (re)organizing-processes of prior knowledge and thus reduce unnecessary cognitive load during subsequent learning. Fifty-six student teachers participated in the experiment. A framework group underwent a pre-training intervention providing a generalized, categorical schema for categorizing primary learning strategies and related but different strategies as a cognitive framework for (re-)organizing their prior knowledge. Our control group received comparable factual information but no framework. Afterwards, all participants learned about primary learning strategies. The framework group claimed to possess higher levels of interest and self-efficacy, achieved higher learning outcomes, and learned more efficiently. Hence, providing a categorical framework can help overcome the barrier of incorrect prior knowledge in pieces.

Information about a layperson's knowledge supports experts in giving effective and efficient online advice to laypersons.

To give effective and efficient advice to laypersons, experts should adapt their explanations to the layperson's knowledge. However, experts often fail to consider the limited domain knowledge of laypersons. To support adaptation in asynchronous helpdesk communication, researchers provided computer experts with information about a layperson's knowledge. A dialogue experiment (N = 80 dyads of experts and laypersons) was conducted that varied the displayed information. Rather than sensitizing the experts to generally improve the intelligibility of their explanations, the individuating information about the layperson enabled them to make specific partner adjustments that increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the communication. The results are suggestive of ways in which the provision of instructional explanations could be enhanced in Internet-based communication.

Internet experts' planning of explanations for laypersons: a Web experimental approach in the Internet domain.

How flexible are Internet experts in taking the perspective of laypersons? A Web experimental approach is presented that examines the Internet experts' perspective taking in planning explanations for laypersons. The Internet was the topic to be communicated and it also provided the means to implement the experimental method. Participants rated how extensively they would treat some specific concepts when explaining a topic such as the WWW. Independent variables were the addressee's intention, their level of domain knowledge, and the importance of the concepts to be evaluated. The results show that the experts preferred planning strategies that integrated all three types of information. Though their planning decisions were mainly guided by conceptual constraints, the Internet experts also took into account information about the addressee's intention and prior knowledge.