Ryan Lab Group Meetings

Spring 2020 (2202)

Prior to start of semester

Thurs., 01/16/20

Got email from Joe Moyer (see ../Research/Papers/Difficulty factors/2019_11_11_For future submissions/) in which he sent two papers. I'll meet with Joe and Branden on Thurs. 01/23/20 at noon (office hours) to discuss how those papers can contribute to the Difficulty Factors ms.

Spring 2020 (2202)

First Week of Fifteen, Mon. 01-20-20

Tues., 01/21/20

Branden Stanley stopped in. We were working on having him do an Independent Study - Selected Research Topics in Psychology (PSY 370) in which he would do the preparatory work for a pre-registered, high powered, experiment on the effects of Spaced Retrieval Practice on RETENTION of basic statistics concepts (as a followup to the StatsSE study). He would do the lit search and create the pre-registration, the scripts, and the materials.

He was going to do it for 2 credits (not 3) so as to not exceed 18 credits. However, he now plans on taking a course that is 4 credits. Even with the PSY 370 being only 2 credits that would put him one credit over 18, plus it would give him a very heavy load of courses. Therefore, we will plan on his doing the PSY 370 in the Summer or next Fall.

But he can still work with Joe Moyer on literature to add to the Difficulty Factors study.

Thurs. 01/23/20

Met with Joe Moyer and Branden Stanley.

Landy, Smout, & Brooks, 2014 - Might be about how the spatial relations of numbers and words in a word problem bias students to construct an equation that maintains those spatial relations even if that results in an incorrect equation.

Goldstone, Marghetis, Weitnaur, Ottmar, & Landy, 2017 - They found that when proximity is incongruent with order of operations (p 436), people are more likely to make an error on equality judgments.

Congruent f + z * t + b = or does not = t + b * f + z (correct ans. is does NOT equal)

Incongruent f + z * t + b = or does not = t + b * f + z (correct ans. is does NOT equal) More errors of saying they are equal

Thus, a visuospatial feature affected mathematical reasoning to the detriment of following the correct order of operations. The same kind of thing that I saw, but shown in a different way.

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Spring 2020 (2202)

Second Week of Fifteen, Mon. 01-27-20

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Spring 2020 (2202)

Third Week of Fifteen, Mon. 02-03-20

Wed. 02/05/20

Email from James Koppenhofer:

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Hi Dr. Ryan,

So, just to reiterate, we just need to remove the last sentence of my discussion section to correspond with your paper? I agree with this change, especially if it will be talked about later in the results. I am excited to hear about the finished manuscript!

I would be delighted to help with finding literature for a new manuscript! You will have to let me know what you will be researching and some studies that have already been identified so I can have an idea of what to look for. And I would also be interested in helping Branden, though I may be a bit preoccupied with school myself, but I will help where I can. Looking back I wish I had more people to work out my Independent Research project with during the early stages, since I had to give up on attempting to preregister it as the semester went on. Though I now have an idea of what preregistration would entail and I believe I could be of assistance during that phase.

Let me know about your manuscript and future research! Hope you are having a good semester so far.

Best,

James Koppenhofer

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Joe Moyer and Branden Stanley are working on finding background literature for the Difficulty Factors manuscript. Here is my email back to James regarding what I might like to have him work on.

Here is my email back to him:

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Hi, James,

I'll keep you updated as the Stats SE manuscript moves along.

The other manuscript that I'm trying to get out is the one on Difficulty Factors in solving algebra equations. That was the study showing that students sometimes have a bias to work through the math operations to solve an equation by working from left to right - even if doing so would violate the order of operations. That was presented as a poster at APS in 2015. The manuscript has been submitted to and rejected by the Journal of the Learning Sciences, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Their rejection letters contained advice and one of the things they suggested was more recent literature cited in the introduction. Joe Moyer and Branden Stanley have the most recent version of that manuscript, and the rejection letters. They are using those to look up more recent literature to add to the manuscript before I try submitting it somewhere else.

Branden is working on that lit search because, although he had initially planned to work on developing the next experiment in the Stats retention series, he now is going to put that off until the summer or Fall 2020. Since you are already fully experienced with the Stats SE study, perhaps you could join with him in that project. I really should start by having someone do a literature search for that study even before we try to develop the pre-registration, materials, scripts, etc. for it. Poor lit review is often the downfall of getting my research published. For the next experiment in that series I was thinking of trying to manipulate spaced retrieval practice as a factor. One condition could be pretty much like our self-explain condition in the previous study, but with no spaced retrieval practice. It would just be self-explaining in massed rather than spaced training, and with presentation of the critical information instead of practicing retrieving it. We could include a restate control condition in order to try to replicate the benefit of that first SE condition over restating for initial acquisition. The new condition could have self-explaining, but in spaced sessions in which at least part of the time the subjects had to retrieve information (followed by feedback) instead of having it presented to them.

So literature on spacing, retrieval practice, and feedback would all be relevant. There is a ton of it out there. As you find it, you could even write a draft of the introduction section. That could contribute to the pre-registration. Meanwhile, when Branden gets back on the project, you and he together could work on the rest of the pre-registration. That's a ton of work. I'd be involved in that too. So how about this. You begin by putting yourself in this frame of mind: "Okay, self-explaining helped initial acquisition of these very basic stat concepts, but did nothing for later retention. Why? Perhaps the lit on the benefits of cognitive principles for educational practices can provide an answer. Let's see what that lit says about other principles (spacing, retrieval practice, feedback) and whether they might help retention of this basic stats info."

We might also consider examining more complex materials. Instead of just requiring the subjects to state which test to used based on OUR TELLING THEM how many conditions there were and what types of conditions they were, maybe we could also try requiring them (or some of them) to infer the number and types of conditions from the examples. Who knows, that might also help retention. Maybe what we were trying to have them retain was so simple in the initial training that they kind of disregarded trying to learn it deeply.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

--- Dr. Ryan

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