Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
EdD Program in Instructional Technology and Distance Education
Advisor
Michael Hutton
Committee Member
Todd Curless
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Committee Member
Maryellen Maher
Keywords
4C/ID, concept mapping, instructional design, knowledge transfer, problem solving, scaffolding, Schwartz and Bransford, structuredness, transfer activities
Abstract
The use of concept mapping following the Schwartz and Bransford (1998) protocols were tested as a scaffolding intervention with ill- and moderately well-structured transfer activities to determine the impact on transferring those skills to the solution of new problems. This study included three faculty members, six course sections, and a total of 55 students conducted at a large midwestern community college. All students completed well-structured pretest and posttests that measured their declarative, structural, and procedural knowledge skills in basic statistics and problem solving tools. Half the students completed a summary page describing the problem solving approaches for two contrasting cases. The second half of the students created a concept map that integrated the problem solving approaches presented in the two contrasting cases. Following the completion of this assignment and lecture/readings on problem solving methods, the students were assigned randomly to project teams. Each team was asked to solve either a well- or ill-structured troubleshooting or diagnosis-solution problem, based on a macrocontext of a virtual manufacturing company, Robotic Grippers, Inc. All students completed a well-structured posttest that determined changes in knowledge. A 2x2 factorial design with interaction was analyzed using ANOVA and paired data t-tests. The Schwartz and Bransford protocol treatment was determined to be very significant, p < 0.01, the effect of the structuredness treatment was determined to have no significant impact, and a significant interaction occurred, p < .05, among the four treatment combinations. The combination of an ill-structured transfer activity and use of the concept map protocol produced a 32% increase in improvement in student scores, while the combination of the moderately well-structured transfer activity and the summary protocol produced a drop of 2.5%
This study answered the following research questions: What scaffolding effect does the application of a problem solving process to the solution of a well- or ill-structured activity have on transferring those competencies learned to the solution of a new problem? Does the use of an integrating activity, as described in the 4C/ID or NCE/AME instructional systems design models, enhance the transfer of complex cognitive skills?