Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA.
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Peabody #0552, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2017 Oct;24(5):1501-1510. doi: 10.3758/s13423-016-1079-5.
Generating explanations for oneself in an attempt to make sense of new information (i.e., self-explanation) is often a powerful learning technique. Despite its general effectiveness, in a growing number of studies, prompting for self-explanation improved some aspects of learning, but reduced learning of other aspects. Drawing on this recent research, as well as on research comparing self-explanation under different conditions, we propose four constraints on the effectiveness of self-explanation. First, self-explanation promotes attention to particular types of information, so it is better suited to promote particular learning outcomes in particular types of domains, such as transfer in domains guided by general principles or heuristics. Second, self-explaining a variety of types of information can improve learning, but explaining one's own solution methods or choices may reduce learning under certain conditions. Third, explanation prompts focus effort on particular aspects of the to-be-learned material, potentially drawing effort away from other important information. Explanation prompts must be carefully designed to align with target learning outcomes. Fourth, prompted self-explanation often promotes learning better than unguided studying, but alternative instructional techniques may be more effective under some conditions. Attention to these constraints should optimize the effectiveness of self-explanation as an instructional technique in future research and practice.
为了理解新信息而自行解释（即自我解释）通常是一种强有力的学习技巧。尽管它通常很有效，但在越来越多的研究中，提示自我解释可以改善学习的某些方面，但会降低其他方面的学习效果。本研究借鉴了这一最新研究以及对不同条件下自我解释的比较研究，提出了自我解释有效性的四个限制因素。首先，自我解释促进了对特定类型信息的关注，因此它更适合于在特定类型的领域中促进特定的学习成果，例如在受一般原则或启发式指导的领域中进行迁移。其次，解释多种类型的信息可以提高学习效果，但在某些条件下，解释自己的解决方案或选择可能会降低学习效果。第三，解释提示将精力集中在待学习材料的特定方面上，这可能会使其他重要信息的学习受到影响。解释提示必须精心设计，以与目标学习成果保持一致。第四，提示自我解释通常比无指导学习更能促进学习，但在某些情况下，替代教学技术可能更有效。关注这些限制因素应能优化自我解释作为一种教学技术在未来研究和实践中的有效性。
