Worked examples
Overview
- Influence: Worked examples
- Domain: Teaching Strategies
- Sub-Domain: Success criteria
- Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Likely to have positive impact
- Influence Definition: A worked example provides students with a step-by-step guidelines for finding the solution. An aim is to enable students to focus on discrete problem-solving tasks, rather than attempting to hold each of the steps in their working memory while solving a complex problem. In a "faded solutions" variant of the worked example, subsequent problem statements have fewer and fewer instructions until the student is able to complete the complex problem-solving task without the assistance of step-by-step guidelines.
Evidence
- Number of meta-analyses: 2
- Number of studies: 83
- Number of students: 3,324
- Number of effects: 179
- Weighted mean effect size: 0.47
- Robustness index: 2
Meta-Analyses
| Journal Title | Author | First Author's Country | Article Name | Year Published | Variable | Number of Studies | Number of Students | Number of Effects | Effect Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dissertation | Crissman | USA | The Design and Utilization of Effective Worked Examples: A Meta-Analysis | 2006 | Worked examples on achievement | 62 | 3,324 | 151 | 0.57 |
| Educational Psychology Review | Wittwer & Renkl | Germany | How effective are instructional explanations in example-based learning? A meta-analytic review | 2010 | Worked examples on achievement | 21 | 0 | 28 | 0.16 |
| TOTAL/AVERAGE | 83 | 3,324 | 179 | 0.37 | |||||