Students who explore a new concept prior to receiving direct
instruction often demonstrate better conceptual understanding
compared to traditional tell-then-practice methods. Often,
exploratory learning activities have students invent solutions
to a novel problem targeting the new concept. However,
exploring prior to instruction is working memory demanding,
inducing high cognitive load. The current experiments varied
the guidance provided during exploration and examined
subsequent learning. In Experiment 1, participants explored
the procedures and concept of statistical variance prior to
receiving instruction in one of three conditions: invention,
completion problem, or worked example. Exploring using a
worked example led to the highest learning outcomes and the
least cognitive load. In Experiment 2, students in an
undergraduate statistics class completed invention or worked
example problems either before or after instruction. Learning
was greater when problem solving preceded instruction.
However, exploring using a worked example did not improve
learning over the more cognitively-demanding invention
problem. These findings demonstrate the benefits of
exploratory learning in the classroom compared to more
traditional tell-then-practice approaches. However, more
research is needed to determine when and how guidance will
enhance exploration.
