| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 教育研究所 === 100 === According to the perspective of limited capacity of working memory and cognitive load theory (Sweller, Van Merriënboer, & Paas, 1998), the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of “problem formats” (completion problem vs. problem solving) and “learning activity” (individual learning vs. collaborative learning) on problem solving achievement and cognitive load among Taiwan junior high school students in learning geometry concepts and problem solving skills.
The participants were four-classes 8th graders (N=115). They all participated in four stages including pretest, instruction, learning tasks and posttest. In the learning phase, they were assigned to four experimental conditions in such a way that the first class had to learn individually from problem-solving tasks, the second class had to learn individually from completion-problem tasks, the third class had to learn in 3-person group from problem-solving tasks, the forth class had to learn in 3-person group from completion-problem tasks. The researcher analyzed the group differences of a 9-point cognitive load rating scale rated by participants after each learning task and posttest task, and posttest performance. Besides, in order to test whether instructional format were appropriate, researcher further calculated the instructional efficiency score which is an indicator of quality of instructional format.
The major findings of the research were summarized as follows.
1. The levels of prior knowledge of four classes were not equal.
2. No significant effects of problem format or learning activity were found no matter on mental effort, performance or instructional efficiency scores, nor were there interaction effects between problem format and learning activity.
3. The participants seemed to prefer problem solving format to completion problem.
4. The participants in completion problem format groups learned concepts of volume and area in an organized way and then listed the formula step by step which was consistent with what they taught in completion problem process. Comparatively, the students in problem solving groups solved the problems in intuitive and less organized patterns. For example, many students collapsed several problem-solving steps into one as if in a hurry and others redrew the geometry figures to shape their understanding and problem solving steps.
Finally, several suggestions were given for future researchers, teachers and instructional designers.
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