Learner Experience and Efficiency of Instructional Guidance

Interactions between levels of learner knowledge in a domain and levels of instructional guidance were studied in this investigation. Inexperienced mechanical trade apprentices were presented with one of two alternative instructional designs: a series of worked examples or a less guided exploratory-based environment allowing participants to explore the same material on their own. Two levels of task difficulty were used: (a) simple tasks with a very limited problem space with a small number of possible options to explore; and (b) complex tasks with a relatively larger problem space with numerous options to explore. Following instruction subjective mental load ratings and test performance measures were collected. There were only minimal differences between the instructional procedures on the simple tasks. For complex tasks, inexperienced trainees clearly benefited most from the worked examples procedure. This group performed significantly better with lower ratings of mental load than similar trainees who studied the exploratory procedure. When participants became more experienced in the domain, after two specifically designed training sessions, the advantage of a worked examples procedure disappeared. Thus, as the level of experience was raised, the performance of the exploratory group improved more than performance of the worked examples group. Suggestions are made for computer-based instructional procedures that take learner knowledge into account by employing the strategic use of both worked examples and exploratory-based instruction.