Training task‐selection skills: The effect of prompts and explicit instruction on transfer

Abstract

AbstractFor effective self‐regulated learning with problem‐solving tasks, students must accurately assess their performance and select a suitable next learning task. However, most students struggle with this. Recent research shows that self‐assessment and task‐selection skills can be trained through video modeling examples (SATS‐training). However, the limited research available suggests that students struggle to transfer trained task‐selection skills to other problem‐solving contexts. We investigated whether guidance in the form of prompts (stating that the task‐selection procedure can be adapted and used) or explicit instruction (on how the procedure can be adapted) would improve task‐selection accuracy on transfer tasks with this guidance available and on later, unguided transfer tasks. Explicit instruction significantly enhanced task‐selection accuracy compared to prompts and a no‐guidance control condition on guided transfer tasks, but not on unguided transfer tasks. Thus, it remains a question how to lastingly improve transfer of task‐selection skills also in the absence of guidance.