| Summary: | Providing exploratory activities prior to direct instruction can facilitate learning. However, the level of guidance provided during the exploratory activity has largely gone unstudied. In this paper, I examined the effects of one form of guidance, feedback, during exploratory mathematics problem solving for children with varying levels of prior domain knowledge. In two experiments, second- and third-grade children solved 12 novel mathematical equivalence problems and then received brief conceptual instruction. After solving each problem, they received (a) no-feedback, (b) outcome-feedback, or (c) strategy-feedback. In both experiments, prior knowledge moderated the impact of feedback on childrens learning. For children with lower prior knowledge, feedback during exploration improved their procedural knowledge. But, for children with higher prior knowledge, no feedback resulted in better procedural knowledge. This potential expertise reversal effect indicates that theories of learning need to incorporate the role of prior knowledge and that providing feedback may not always be optimal.
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