The polite version yielded better learning outcomes, and the effect was amplified in learners who expressed a preference for indirect feedback, who had less computer experience, and who lacked engineering backgrounds. These results confirm the hypothesis that learners tend to respond to pedagogical agents as social actors, and suggest that research should focus less on the media in which agents are realized, and place more emphasis on the agent's social intelligence.

Neuroscience techniques can only reliably answer “how” people behave or process information, but they should never answer “why” people behave the way they do.

Scenarios can be implemented in actual simulations (where the world is actively modeled, and the consequences are calculated), or in branching scenarios where the relationships are hard-coded in the consequences attached to a decision.

scenarios give us contextualized practice, which research shows leads to better retention and transfer. With the right choices, the scenario is engaging and provides meaningful practice, which leads to acquiring new abilities.

<div data-breakout="normal"><p class="-Zro6 -ZADH IjV6v AnCKd _57WYp" id="viewer-avnma"><span class="d0767"><span style="font-weight:700"><span>DAN: What makes learning through a simulation experience unique and meaningful?</span></span></span></p></div><div type="paragraph" data-hook="rcv-block26"></div><div data-breakout="normal"><p class="-Zro6 -ZADH IjV6v AnCKd _57WYp" id="viewer-d53db"><span class="d0767"><span style="font-weight:700"><span>CLARK</span></span><span>: As above, research says that contextualized practice (with feedback) is the best way to develop new abilities. They need to have a ’story’ setting: a context, then something happens that precipitates the need for a decision, and then the decision has consequences. That’s just a better-written multiple-choice question (please!), but if we drive the outcomes from a branching or simulation basis, this can lead to new decisions (they travel in packs!)</span></span></p></div>

Stories may be easier to remember and comprehend than essays because stories resemble our everyday experiences (Bruner, <a href="#CR10" rid="CR10" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1986</a>; Graesser et al., <a href="#CR39" rid="CR39" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1991</a>). People experience life in the real world as temporally ordered causal events, organized around personal goals, with the encountering and overcoming of obstacles to these goals resulting in emotional experiences; this parallels the structure of stories (Graesser, McNamara, &amp; Louwerse, <a href="#CR37" rid="CR37" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2003</a>; Graesser, Singer, &amp; Trabasso, <a href="#CR38" rid="CR38" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1994</a>).

Familiarity with the structure and content of a text is referred to as relevant “prior knowledge” (Dochy, Segers, &amp; Buehl, <a href="#CR28" rid="CR28" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1999</a>), and stories might be more memorable and comprehensible thanks to readers having greater prior knowledge.

Readers are less likely to benefit from prior knowledge while reading an essay, relative to stories, and are therefore less likely to benefit from easy inferences. This combination could easily put expository texts at a disadvantage when it comes to memory and comprehension (Coté, Goldman, &amp; Saul, <a href="#CR18" rid="CR18" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1998</a>; McNamara, <a href="#CR68" rid="CR68" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2004</a>).

A final reason to believe that narratives may be more memorable than expository texts hinges on the ability of emotions to facilitate memory (Hamann, <a href="#CR42" rid="CR42" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2001</a>). Affectively charged recollections have been dubbed “flash-bulb” memories, to communicate the idea that emotional events are deeply imprinted on the mind, like a flash aiding photography (Winograd &amp; Neisser, <a href="#CR107" rid="CR107" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1992</a>). This emotional facilitation of memory appears to result from a prioritizing of emotional material when it comes to attention and perception (Brosch, Pourtois, &amp; Sander, <a href="#CR9" rid="CR9" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2010</a>), with personal relevance playing a key role (Levine &amp; Edelstein, <a href="#CR58" rid="CR58" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2009</a>). To the extent that stories are better able to evoke strong emotions than expository texts (cf. Mar, Oatley, Djikic, &amp; Mullin, <a href="#CR62" rid="CR62" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2011</a>), we would expect stories to be better recalled than exposition.

Our primary research question was whether memory and comprehension differ for narrative versus expository texts. Our three-level random-effects meta-analysis of 150 effect-sizes found that, on average, memory and comprehension of narrative texts was superior to that for expository texts.

Our meta-analysis of 150 effect-sizes (from over 75 unique samples and more than 33,000 participants) found that people had an easier time comprehending and recalling narrative texts compared to expository ones. The average magnitude of this effect was more than a half a standard deviation, with a 95% CI ranging from just more than one-quarter to slightly more than three-quarters of a standard deviation. Moreover, this result appears to be robust, and not driven by any one particular effect-size or study. There was a great deal of variability in these effects, however, almost all of which represents true heterogeneity and not random sampling error. This variability originated primarily from differences between studies.

In closing, the totality of the evidence available finds that people have an easier time comprehending and recalling information presented in a story compared to that presented in an essay. This has potential implications for a number of disciplines, not least of which is the realm of education.

To that end, the advantage afforded to narratives over exposition in this domain should be considered whenever possible. We must emphasize, however, that these results should not be interpreted as a suggestion to force all information into a narrative form for pedagogical purposes, especially when such information is not typically presented in this way.

It is quite possible that mixed genres like narrative journalism, for example, could hold the key for leveraging the advantages of narrative–its ability to capture interest and communicate experience through imagination – to meet the goals of exposition to inform and educate (van Krieken &amp; Sanders, <a href="#CR102" rid="CR102" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">in press</a>).

Based on over 75 unique samples and data from more than 33,000 participants, we found that stories were more easily understood and better recalled than essays. Moreover, this result was robust, not influenced by the inclusion of a single effect-size or single study, and not moderated by various study characteristics. This finding has implications for any domain in which acquiring and retaining information is important.

Results revealed detrimental effects of talking heads on the recall of factual knowledge covered in the videos. Interestingly, participants rated their perceived learning as being higher for videos with talking head. Furthermore, participants assigned higher satisfaction scores to videos with talking heads and selected them more frequently when choosing between different formats.

<span>Higher levels of teacher presence have been positively associated with student satisfaction and student&nbsp;</span><em>perceptions</em><span>&nbsp;of learning.</span>

Findings suggest that combining talking heads and annotations in asynchronous video lectures yielded the longest watch time, and highest satisfaction, engagement, and attitude scores.

The 85% rule suggests growth will be maximized when we practice tasks we can succeed at roughly four-fifths of the time.

If you succeed in every attempt, you probably don’t have the difficulty high enough to improve. If you fail most of the time, you will likely make more progress if you start picking smaller, more manageable challenges.

Finally, version with dialogue-based choices (see screenshot above) was perceived as more personal and engaging, “lively” and helpful for making a selection (“made me feel like I was talking out loud in my head”).

The findings from this pilot questionnaire seem to indicate that providing framing in the options themselves has more effect on the learner than providing it in an introductory text.

Additionally, options written as dialogue were experienced as more personal and elicited higher emotional reactions of the learner towards the characters. This may be of use in courses about soft skills.

<strong><a href="https://www.christytuckerlearning.com/how-research-informs-my-work/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">How Research Informs My Work</a><br></strong><em>Research plays an important role in the work of learning professionals. While our work often serves organizational performance goals, educational research forms the foundations upon which we can build programs that can effectively target those goals. It’s not about one being more important than the other; as Christy Tucker explains in this inciteful post, research informs the work we do in L&amp;D.</em>

Does learning science play a role in our work, and, just how <em>much</em> of an impact does it have on our profession?

We must be able to see the gaps in our instructional design, which learning science helps to <a href="https://blog.learnlets.com/2020/08/the-case-for-learning-science/">support</a>. It also gives us a basis to infer how to use new technologies. If we want to avoid doing slide presentations, we have to know what cognitive (and emotional) advantages these technologies have so we can leverage them for success.

However, I’ve argued strongly that what’s most critical is the ability to make better decisions. The decisions we make determine our success. We make better decisions <em>about</em> learning when we know how learning works. It may not be all the time, but they will be the most impactful decisions when leveraging evidence-based approaches to our work. If we don’t have the foundation for learning-grounded decisions, the important ones not be made on a solid basis.

Regardless of its latest terminology, we need to be able to see past the hype and be able to evaluate the claims.

The student teachers were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions:control group (online scenario-based learning activity), intervention group 1 (online scenario-based learning activity and feedback), and intervention group 2 (online scenario-based learning, feedback, and reflection). The findings indicated that, compared to the control group, both intervention conditions had a significant positive effect on cognitive classroom readiness. A significant positive effect on self-efficacy was found for intervention group 2. Overall, our research demonstrates the potential of an easy-to-implement online intervention in enhancing self-efficacy and classroom readiness and points towards the importance of combining feedback and reflection within online scenario-based learning activities.

While the e-learning SBL was not better than the classroom experience, it was comparable. The lack of significance tells us that the online learning students view their engagement, enjoyment, and learning similarly.

<strong>Key Takeaway:</strong> Scenario-based learning is beneficial, both online and in-person. Thus, implementing SBL into e-learning settings, particularly when preparing learners for real-world settings, is an effective way to engage learners.

As instructors and designers, we need to keep in mind that there can be other reasons to use objectives <em>and </em>we need to clearly distinguish between objectives that we use as instructional/learning designers versus the ones we might use for learners.

So how often should information be boostered? We recommend that you send boosters out in three phases. You can keep this in mind by remembering 2+2+2. Send out boosters after two days, two weeks, and two months.

This first set of boosters should be “recognition boosters.” The strategy here is just to get people to try to recognize the right answer from a list of options.

The second phase of boosters should be sent about two weeks after the training and at this time you should send out “generative boosters.” In a generative booster, the learner does not just recognize the right answer from a list. Instead, they have to think about the topic and then create an answer out of their head.

The third phase of boosters should be sent about two months after the training, and at this time you should send out “integrative boosters.” An integrative booster again prompts the learner to retrieve the information, but this question specifically asks them to provide concrete examples of how they have made use of this information in their job.