Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Success in Algebra I often predicts whether or not a studentwill pursue higher levels of mathematics and science.However, many students enter algebra holding persistentmisconceptions that are difficult to eliminate, thus, hinderingtheir ability to succeed in algebra. One way to address thesemisconceptions is to implement worked-examples and self-explanation prompts, which have been shown to improvestudents’ conceptual knowledge. However this effect seems tobe greater after a delay. The current study sought to exploresuch time-related effects on algebra conceptual knowledge. Ina year-long random-assignment study, students either studiedworked-examples and answered self-explanation prompts (n =132) or solved typical isomorphic problems (n = 140). Athree-way mixed ANCOVA (pre-algebra knowledge xcondition x time) found a significant condition by time effect.The growth of algebra conceptual knowledge was greater forstudents studying worked-examples than for those solvingtypical problems.