Strategy freedom leads students to skip unit and substance steps, reducing conceptual practice opportunities¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Students in the low-scaffolding condition completed far fewer unit and substance specification steps than students in the high-scaffolding condition. → Borchers 2025

Evidence¶

Borchers 2025¶

Borchers, C., Fleischer, H., Schanze, S., Scheiter, K., & Aleven, V. (2025). High scaffolding of an unfamiliar strategy improves conceptual learning but reduces enjoyment compared to low scaffolding and strategy freedom. Computers & Education, 236, 105364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2025.105364

q2 · i? · causal · r2

An exploratory log-data analysis of practice transactions showed that when unit and substance specification was optional, students rarely engaged in it: "students specified units an average of 2.0 times and substances 0.6 times", versus over 22 steps of each type in the high-scaffolding condition.

"In ORCCA, where specifying units and substances was optional, students specified units an average of 2.0 times and substances 0.6 times. In contrast, students using StoichTutor completed an average of 22.0 unit steps and 22.8 substance steps."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Highly scaffolded tutoring with an unfamiliar strategy yields larger conceptual learning gains than lowly scaffolded tutoring with strategy freedom — related
• Procedural learning gains do not significantly differ between the highly and lowly scaffolded tutoring systems — related
• Students prefer the lowly scaffolded, strategy-free tutoring system for usability and enjoyment — related
• Scaffolding must be balanced: too little led to confusion and overload, while too much reduced opportunities for critical thinking — a broader claim this one bears on
• The supplemental model risks students skipping online work and course overload — related