Worked examples
Overview
- Influence: Worked examples
- Domain: Teaching Strategies
- Sub-Domain: Learning intentions
- Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to accelerate
- 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: 3
- Number of studies: 126
- Number of students: 3,324
- Number of effects: 360
- Weighted mean effect size: 0.47
- Robustness index: 3
Meta-Analyses
| Journal Title | Author | Article Name | Year Published | Variable | Number of Studies | Number of Students | Number of Effects | Effect Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dissertation | Crissman | 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 | How effective are instructional explanations in example-based learning? A meta-analytic review | 2010 | Worked examples on achievement | 21 | NA | 28 | 0.16 | |
| Conference paper | Barbieri, Miller-Cotto, Clerjuste, Chawla, Le, DeLuca, & Landy | A meta-analysis exploring the effect of worked examples on mathematics performance. | 2023 | Worked examples on achievement | 43 | NA | 181 | 0.48 | |
| TOTAL/AVERAGE | 126 | 3,324 | 360 | 0.40 | |||||