Learning-by-Teaching

​“Learning-by-teaching” is more effective than other methods, and this benefit likely comes from the various effects of audience awareness on meta-cognition and motivation, new study finds.

Previous research has shown that “learning-by-teaching” (LbT) can be very effective and improve performance on subsequent assessments compared to other instructional methods. 

A variety of reasons have been proposed to explain this superiority: 

• LbT may simply be more time consuming, especially when it is assigned as homework. Thus, creating a tutorial video may take more time than simply reading class notes or even summarizing them in writing. If this were the case, LbT would not really be more efficient, but simply associated with a greater quantity of “input” (work time) on the part of students. 

• A second reason, dubbed the “Generative learning hypothesis” could be that teaching improves learning because explaining new information to a peer stimulates students to engage in higher-level mental activities (compared to rote memorization), such as: selecting, organizing, developing, filling gaps and integrating with prior knowledge.

• Finally, the “Social presence hypothesis” posits that LbT is effective because the awareness of an audience (even virtual) elicits unique meta-cognitive and motivational processes. Regarding meta-cognition, LbT leads students to consider whether the imagined recipient would comprehend a particular explanation, which requires both explicitation and a constant checking of their own understanding. In terms of motivation, LbT is likely to be associated with agency (sense of ability and usefulness) and accountability, as well as with arousal, which enhances all cognitive processes, including motivation, working memory and memory consolidation.

To test these different theories, a team of researchers recently conducted a study on 131 Dutch primary school students (average age: 11 years old) assigned to 3 different conditions: 

• After receiving a 3-page, 808-word text on photosynthesis, the first group was simply instructed to study the document as often and necessary as required over the weekend.

• The second group was instructed to do the same, but also to write a summary of the key ideas.

• The last group was also given the same instruction, but asked to create a tutorial video for a fictitious peer.

Finally, all students were given a conceptual knowledge test with 10 open-ended questions, such as “Why is photosynthesis important for plants?” and asked to self-report the mental effort and enjoyment associated with the weekend homework, as well as the amount of time spent on it.

Results indicated that students in all three groups spent the same amount of time on the different homework assignments. As anticipated, mental effort was greater in the summarizing and teaching conditions (+67%). However, only teaching led to better performance on the test (+33%). It was also the preferred activity (+20%).
  
These findings do not only confirm the effectiveness of learning-by-teaching: they also indicate that the best explanation for its superiority over other methods may very well be the “social presence hypothesis”.

Interestingly, technology-integrating homework assignments could be a better way of leveraging the advantages of LbT than the “jigsaw” activities that are so common in modern classrooms because of the added-value of teaching a virtual, mentally-constructed peer.

Reference: Hoogerheide, Visee, Lachner and Gog, “Generating an Instructional Video as Homework Activity is Both Effective and Enjoyable”, Learning and Instruction, 64, 2019.