Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2011 Jun;81(Pt 2):309-24. doi: 10.1348/000709910X513933. Epub 2011 Mar 9.
Education is aimed at students reaching conceptual understanding of the subject matter, because this leads to better performance and application of knowledge. Conceptual understanding depends on coherent and error-free knowledge structures. The construction of such knowledge structures can only be accomplished through active learning and when new knowledge can be integrated into prior knowledge.
The intervention in this study was directed at both the activation of students as well as the integration of knowledge.
Undergraduate university students from an introductory statistics course, in an authentic problem-based learning (PBL) environment, were randomly assigned to conditions and measurement time points.
In the PBL tutorial meetings, half of the tutors guided the discussions of the students in a traditional way. The other half guided the discussions more actively by asking directive and activating questions. To gauge conceptual understanding, the students answered open-ended questions asking them to explain and relate important statistical concepts.
Results of the quantitative analysis show that providing directive tutor guidance improved understanding. Qualitative data of students' misconceptions seem to support this finding. Long-term retention of the subject matter seemed to be inadequate.
教育旨在使学生对学科内容达到概念理解的程度，因为这会导致更好的知识表现和应用。概念理解取决于连贯且无误的知识结构。这种知识结构的构建只能通过主动学习和新知识可以融入先验知识来实现。
本研究中的干预措施既针对学生的激活，也针对知识的整合。
在基于真实问题的学习（PBL）环境中，来自统计学入门课程的本科大学生被随机分配到条件和测量时间点。
在 PBL 辅导会上，一半的导师以传统方式指导学生的讨论。另一半通过提出直接和激活问题更积极地指导讨论。为了衡量概念理解，学生回答了开放式问题，要求他们解释和关联重要的统计概念。
定量分析的结果表明，提供直接的导师指导可以提高理解。学生错误概念的定性数据似乎支持这一发现。对主题的长期保留似乎不足。
