Responses to Kirschner, Sweller, Clark (2006) and the Response to Those Responses

[Richard Hake]

Some subscribers to MathFuture might be interested in "Responses to Kirschner, Sweller, Clark (2006) and the Response to Those Responses" [Hake (2012). The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: The recent article "Putting Students on the Path to Learning: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction" [Clark, Kirschner, & Sweller (2012)] at <http://bit.ly/GDjqO5> stimulated my post "Yet More From the Clark/Kirschner/Sweller Team" at <http://bit.ly/GBNwrP> that:

1. Pointed to my response "Language Ambiguities in Education Research" at <http://bit.ly/bHTebD> to "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching" [Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (KSC )(2006) at <http://bit.ly/duJVG4>];

2. Initiated a thread on the March archives of PhysLrnR <http://bit.ly/GJ63ik> which had grown to 14 posts on 23 March 2012, one of which was by:

3. Noah Podolefsky who called attention to the response of Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn (2007) at <http://bit.ly/aKUD5s> to KSC (2006), and included Hmelo-Silver et al.'s complete abstract. Following Podolefsky, I call attention (with complete abstracts) to the response of:

a. Schmidt, Loyens, van Gog, & Paas (2007) at <http://bit.ly/9uwVc8> to (KSC) (2006);

b. Kuhn (2007) at <http://bit.ly/ekxUvD> to KSC (2006);

c. Sweller, Kirschner, Clark (2007) at <http://bit.ly/p6wXB3> to Silver, Duncan, & Chinn (2007); Schmidt, Loyens, van Gog, & Paas (2007); and Kuhn (2007).

As a counter to Sweller et al.s (2007) emphasis on the importance of Randomized Control Trials (RCT's) in education research, see e.g., "Re: Should Randomized Control Trials Be the Gold Standard of Educational Research?" [Hake (2005a,b) at <http://bit.ly/GRLXEX> and <http://bit.ly/GMrrUA>.

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To access the complete 17 kB post please click on <http://bit.ly/GL7Gdm>.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
     which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)
<rrh...@earthlink.net>
Links to Articles: <http://bit.ly/a6M5y0>
Links to SDI Labs: <http://bit.ly/9nGd3M>
Blog: <http://bit.ly/9yGsXh>
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"There is substantial evidence that scientific teaching in the sciences, i.e., teaching that employs instructional strategies that encourage undergraduates to become actively engaged in their own learning, can produce levels of understanding, retention and transfer of knowledge that are greater than those resulting from traditional lecture/lab classes. But widespread acceptance by university faculty of new pedagogies and curricular materials still lies in the future."
         Robert DeHaan (2005)


REFERENCES [URL's shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 23 March 2012.]

DeHaan, R.L. 2005. "The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science  Education," Journal of Science Education and Technology 14(2):  253-269; an abstract is online at <http://bit.ly/GMVv2m>. The complete article was formerly online as a 152 kB pdf  at <http://bit.ly/ncAuQa> but on 23 March 2012 that site had been temporarily disabled.

Hake, R.R. 2012. "Responses to Kirschner, Sweller, Clark (2006) and the Response to Those Responses" " on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://bit.ly/GL7Gdm>. Post of 23 Mar 2012 12:59:25 0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists and are on my blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/GV2ENc> with a provision for comments.

[David Wees]

I've written on the same issue. If you provide any kind of framework at all, then by definition, the learning is not completely unassisted. The term "unassisted discovery" is intended to discredit constructivist learning environments, and isn't a good description of how these environments are actually constructed.

Look at Seymour Papert's Logo programming environment for kids, and at first it seems like it could be "unassisted discovery." However, the structure of the language provides scaffolding for discovery far above what would happen if kids were doodling on paper (not to bash doodling on paper as activity...). Doodling in Logo is an incredibly mathematically rich experience.

I have some research which supports discovery based learning, although it is not as exhaustive as your list, but it does come from a variety of different fields.

http://davidwees.com/content/constructivist-teaching-not-unassisted-discovery 

David

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