Out of the Lab and into the Classroom: An Evaluation of Reflective Dialogue in Andes
Sandra Katz, John Connelly, Christine Wilson · 2007
Several laboratory studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of presenting students with “Reflection Questions” immediately after they have solved quantitative problems [1, 2]. The main goal of the two experiments described in this paper was to determine if the positive results of post-practice reflection from laboratory studies hold up in an actual classroom setting. We added prototype reflective dialogues to the Andes physics tutoring system [3, 4] and evaluated them in a course at the US Naval Academy. Consistent with prior research, the dialogues promoted conceptual understanding of physics. However, measures of retention and transfer to problem-solving ability showed only a marginal effect of completing the reflective dialogues, in the first experiment.