In Experiment 2, I-PS students outperformed PS-I students on problem-solving, idea generation, and embedded video quizzes¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? I-PS students significantly outperformed PS-I students during the problem-solving phase and generated more ideas. → Cheng-Wen He 2025 q3 i? I-PS students scored significantly higher than PS-I students on the embedded quizzes during the instruction phase. → Cheng-Wen He 2025 (2)

Evidence¶

Cheng-Wen He 2025¶

Cheng-Wen He, Logan Fiorella, Paula P. Lemons. (2025). Does Instruction-First or Problem-Solving-First Depend on Learners' Prior Knowledge? Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-025-09993-3

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Quade ANCOVA of coded problem-solving performance in Experiment 2, controlling for prior knowledge. The I-PS group also generated significantly more ideas (F(1,136) = 20.56, p < .001), so "outperformed the PS-I students" on both process measures.

"the I-PS students ( M=6 .64,SD = 4.07 ) outperformed the PS-I students ( M=2 .66,SD = 2.34 ) in the problem-solving phase, F(1,136) = 60.51 , p < .001"

Cheng-Wen He 2025 (2)¶

Cheng-Wen He, Logan Fiorella, Paula P. Lemons. (2025). Does Instruction-First or Problem-Solving-First Depend on Learners' Prior Knowledge? Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-025-09993-3

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Quade ANCOVA of embedded video-quiz scores in Experiment 2, controlling for prior knowledge. Unlike Experiment 1, the authors suggest "the initial problem-solving phase may have interfered with students' learning from the instructional video".

"the I-PS group ( M=5 .77,SD = 0.50 ) scored significantly higher on the quizzes than the PS-I group ( M=5 .40,SD = 0.83 ), F(1,136) = 11.41 , p = .001"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• In Experiment 1, I-PS students solved the initial problem better but PS-I students learned more from the subsequent instructional video — related
• Productive Failure Improves Conceptual Learning — a broader claim this one bears on
• Merely delaying instruction until after problem solving does not improve conceptual understanding when no additional measures trigger knowledge-gap awareness or deep-feature discovery — related
• For biochemistry students with relatively higher topic-specific prior knowledge, instruction-first (I-PS) outperformed problem-solving-first (PS-I) on a near-transfer test — related
• For introductory biology students with low topic-specific prior knowledge, problem-solving-first (PS-I) outperformed instruction-first (I-PS) on a near-transfer test — related
• In PS-I, prompting students to generate multiple strategies during the initial phase generally outperformed inventing one strategy or I-PS — related
• Initial failure did not hurt subsequent learning during instruction: no condition differences on example generation or immediate learning tests — related
• DI-PS significantly outperformed PS-DI on the two supplier-reasoning problem-solving criteria (d = .60 and d = .64) — related