| Summary: | 碩士 === 佛光大學 === 學習與數位科技學系 === 100 === The purpose of this study was to investigate how problem statement types in the learning materials affected elementary school children’s performance in learning area concept and measurement, their perception of cognitive load and motivation. Two types of problem statements were examined: mathematic language and natural language (which refers to the use of daily life words or words that are related to daily life items instead of mathematic terms).
A between-subject experimental study was used in this study. The content was area measurement (covering an area using different units). The design of the material was based on the instructional design principles proposed by the cognitive load theory, particularly the worked-example principle. The participants were eighty-three third graders from a public school in Yilan County. They were randomly assigned to one of the two groups ("natural language" and "mathematic language"). The participants first took a pretest, followed by two learning and immediate posttest sessions, and a one-week delayed posttest. The participants’ time-on-task and test performance was measured. Their perception of cognitive load and motivation after each learning session and the delayed posttest were also measured. Instructional efficiency, including training efficiency and mental efficiency, was calculated using the formula proposed by van Gog and Paas (2008).
The results showed that the types of problem statements did not have a significant influence on the effectiveness of learning, but it had a significant influence on the time needed to complete the task. The "natural language" group spent more time to complete the learning task than the "mathematic language" group. In the aspect of cognitive load and motivation, the result showed that "natural language" group reported a lower level of confidence in the immediate posttest , but a higher level of interest in the delayed posttest than the "mathematic language" group. When instructional efficiency was calculated, the results showed that the two types of problem statements did not lead to a significant difference in either training efficiency or mental efficiency in this study.
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