title: Differential-associative processing or example elaboration: Which strategy is best for learning the definitions of related and unrelated concepts?
abstract: Definitions of related concepts (e.g.,genotype-phenotype) are prevalent in introductory classes. Consequently, it is important that educators and students know which strategy(s) work best for learning them. This study showed that a new comparative elaboration strategy, called differential-associative processing, was better for learning definitions of related concepts than was an integrative elaborative strategy, called example elaboration. This outcome occurred even though example elaboration was administered in a naturalistic way (Experiment 1) and students spent more time in the example elaboration condition learning (Experiments 1, 2, 3), and generating pieces of information about the concepts (Experiments 2 and 3). Further, with unrelated concepts (morpheme-fluid intelligence), performance was similar regardless if students used differential-associative processing or example elaboration (Experiment 3). Taken as a whole, these results suggest that differential-associative processing is better than example elaboration for learning definitions of related concepts and is as good as example elaboration for learning definitions of unrelated concepts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Brenda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hannon
keywords: Differences between definitions; Elaboration strategies; Learning definitions