The review reports that worked examples benefit inexperienced learners but become redundant with increased experience, when problem solving proves superior¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2003 · checked against its sources 2026-10-21 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Inexperienced trainees performed better with lower mental load ratings after studying worked examples than after solving problems, but with more experience the advantage disappeared and problem solving became superior. → Kalyuga 2003

Evidence¶

Kalyuga 2003¶

Kalyuga, S., Ayres, P., Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (2003). The Expertise Reversal Effect. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 23-31. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3801_4

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review attributes this to Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, and Sweller (2001), experiments with inexperienced mechanical trade apprentices, adding that with more experience "The worked examples became redun- dant and problem solving proved superior."

"On subse- quent tests, inexperienced trainees benefitted most from the worked examples condition. Trainees who studied worked examples performed better with lower ratings of mental load than similar trainees who solved problems"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Instructional guidance that helps novices can become redundant or counterproductive as expertise grows. — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

- Worked-example guidance becomes less effective as learner expertise increases. — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it¶

• Under many circumstances, studying worked examples produced superior learning compared to active problem solving, as suggested by previous research — related
• Reviews report that the split-attention benefit for novices reverses into a redundancy effect for more experienced learners: Kalyuga et al. (2003) cite Kalyuga et al. (1998) and Yeung et al. (1998), and Ginns (2006) cites Kalyuga et al. (1998) — related
• The review reports that the modality effect reverses with expertise: audio-visual presentations helped inexperienced learners, but after further training a diagram-only condition showed a substantial advantage — related
• Redundancy effect: when one source of information is intelligible in isolation, physically integrating it with another source fails to help and eliminating the redundant source facilitates learning — related
• Worked examples benefit learning even compared to tutored problem solving with on-demand guidance, indicating the effect is not an artefact of weak control conditions — related