Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

8-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Degree Program

Experimental Psychology, PhD

Committee Chair

DeCaro, Marci

Committee Member

Hieb, Jeffrey

Committee Member

Noles, Nicholaus

Committee Member

Chastain, Raymond

Author's Keywords

Exploratory learning; metacognition; acitve learning

Abstract

Exploratory learning engages learners in novel problem solving before direct instruction. This process is designed to lead learners to experience productive failure. Productive failure, however, has been shown to benefit learners by improving the recognition of knowledge gaps, relevant problem features, and deep structures. This allows learners to better attend to relevant information during the subsequent instruction and improves conceptual understanding. This dissertation investigates the role of metacognitive awareness during exploratory learning, in attempt to identify additional metacognitive mechanisms that support exploratory learning. Two experiments tested the theory that exploratory learning promotes metacognitive awareness in exploratory learning. Groups in both experiments included the instruct-first condition and the explore-first condition. The instruct-first condition received direct instruction on the topic followed by an activity and a posttest, whereas the explore-first condition received the activity prior to direct instruction. Experiment 1 (N=149) was conducted in a simulated classroom using statistics materials. In the explore-first condition, learners’ scores on the posttest were significantly higher on inference concepts, but not taught concepts, when compared to the instruct-first v condition. Additionally, learners in the explore-first condition reported higher use of monitoring strategies. Planning, information management strategies, and debugging strategies were no different between instruct-first and explore-first conditions. Experiment 2 (N=115) examined metacognitive awareness during exploratory learning in a large undergraduate engineering mathematics course. In both the instruct-first and explore-first conditions, students were taught about finding physical quantities (distance, mass, volume) using infinite sums in preparation for the fundamental theorem of calculus. Learners did not differ in their knowledge of concepts or procedures, nor were there differences in learners’ metacognitive awareness, between conditions. Together, these experiments provide inconsistent support for the theory that exploratory learning promotes metacognitive awareness. The results of Experiment 1 suggest that metacognitive awareness may depend on context. Experiment 2 addressed the issue of context, but the topic was difficult for students. The task difficulty of Experiment 2 may have limited the ability to detect differences in metacognitive awareness during the exploratory learning activities. These findings highlight the contextual factors that may influence metacognitive awareness in exploratory learning, providing important implications for the design and implementation of effective learning environments.

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