Long-term benefits of direct instruction with reification for learning the control of variables strategy

Abstract

We compare three learning conditions on 57 middle school students' short- and long-term retention at applying the control of variables strategy. Collapsing over time, direct instruction with reification yielded more robust learning than either direct instruction without reification or discovery learning conditions as measured by skill at constructing unconfounded experiments. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.