Supporting problem-solving performance in a hypermedia learning environment: The role of students' prior knowledge and metacognitive skills

  • Authors:
  • Saniye Tugba Bulu;Susan Pedersen

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey;Educational Technology Program, Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4225, USA

  • Venue:
  • Computers in Human Behavior
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

This study investigated how students with different prior knowledge and metacognitive skills benefited from continuous and faded domain-general and domain-specific scaffolds. Students' scores on a multiple-choice pretest, inventory of metacognitive self-regulation, and solution forms were analyzed. Results indicated that while students with lower regulation of cognition and objectivity benefited more from the domain-general scaffolds than the domain-specific ones, students with lower prior knowledge, knowledge of cognition, and problem representation took advantage of both domain-general and domain-specific conditions. Moreover, while students with lower prior knowledge, regulation of cognition, and problem representation took advantage of both continuous and faded domain-general scaffolds, students with lower knowledge of cognition and objectivity benefited more from the domain-general continuous conditions. In addition, students with lower prior knowledge, knowledge of cognition, and objectivity might have difficulties when the domain-specific conditions are faded. On the other hand, results of the study suggested that scaffolds did not substantially benefit the students with higher prior knowledge and higher metacognitive skills.