Seeking instructional specificity: an example from analogical instruction

TL;DR

This study compares two analogy-based instructional strategies in physics education, finding that creating a general rule leads to better understanding and application of physics principles than analyzing cases individually.

Contribution

It demonstrates that structuring analogical instruction to derive general rules enhances learning of physical principles over case-by-case analysis.

Findings

Students seeking a General Rule performed better in discovering physics principles.

The advantage of General Rule analysis persisted after further instruction.

Case-by-Case analysis led students to focus on problem-specific features.

Abstract

Broad instructional methods like interactive engagement have been shown to be effective, but such general characterization provides little guidance on the details of how to structure the instructional materials. In this study, we seek instructional specificity by comparing two ways of using an analogy to learn a target physical principle: (i) applying the analogy to the target physical domain on a Case-by-Case basis and (ii) using the analogy to create a General Rule in the target physical domain. In the discussion sections of a large, introductory physics course (N = 231), students who sought a General Rule were better able to discover and apply a correct physics principle than students who analyzed the examples Case-by-Case. The difference persisted at a reduced level after subsequent direct instruction. We argue that students who performed Case-by-Case analyses are more likely to focus on idiosyncratic problem-specific features rather than the deep structural features. This study provides an example of investigating how the specific structure of instructional materials can be consequential for what is learned.