Generalizing solution procedures learned from examples.

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that when learners are led to group steps from example solutions, they will be more likely to learn subgoals that can be transferred to novel problems, thereby improving problem solving. The results from each experiment suggest that a label serves as a cue for grouping by demonstrating that a relatively meaningless label in an example solution is as effective as a meaningful label in helping learners transfer to novel problems. Experiments 2 and 3 provide converging evidence for subgoal learning by demonstrating that participants studying example solutions with a label were more likely to segment the solution as a function of the label, to mention the corresponding subgoal in their self-explanations while studying the examples, and to mention the subgoal in their descriptions of how to solve problems after they studied the examples.