Under unclear presentation, a more complex concept structure lessens students' ability to identify concepts¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r1 · q3
Currency · newest study 1991 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because a design page cites it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q3 i? With unclear lessons, the classical attribute group identified examples significantly better than the variable coordinate group. → Snyder 1991 q3 i? With unclear lessons, the constant successive structure beat both the coordinate variable and classical attribute structures on application. → Snyder 1991 (2)

Evidence¶

Snyder 1991¶

Snyder, Stephen; Bushur, Lori; Hoeksema, Pam; Olson, Mark; Clark, Shawn; Snyder, Jill. (1991). The Effect of Instructional Clarity and Concept Structure on Student Achievement and Perception. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED331809

q3 · i? · p-values only, no effect size printed · causal · r1

Dunn-Sidak tests on example identification among unclear-lesson groups in the Results section. The article reports the classical attribute group outperformed the variable coordinate group (p<.05), with no other significant differences.

"The classical attribute group did significantly better than the variable coordinate group (p.05).There were no other significant differences between concept groups when the information was presented unclearly (p>.l).It seems that when information is presented unclearly a more complex concept structure will lessen students' ability to identify the concepts taught."

Snyder 1991 (2)¶

Snyder, Stephen; Bushur, Lori; Hoeksema, Pam; Olson, Mark; Clark, Shawn; Snyder, Jill. (1991). The Effect of Instructional Clarity and Concept Structure on Student Achievement and Perception. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED331809

q3 · i? · p-values only, no effect size printed · causal · r1

Dunn-Sidak tests on the application measure among unclear-lesson groups. The article reports the constant successive structure significantly outperformed both other structures (p<.01 each).

"The successive constant concept structure did significantly better than either the coordinate variable (p<.01) or the classical attribute (p.0l) concept structured approach."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Instructional clarity is a significant main effect on concept achievement, accounting for roughly half of score variance across measures — related
• Students accurately perceive differences between clear and unclear lessons regardless of concept structure — related
• A clear variable coordinate lesson produced higher achievement than an unclear lesson with the same concept structure on all five measures — related
• Clarity matters less as concept structure becomes simpler: no significant clear-vs-unclear difference for constant successive lessons
• Clarity and concept structure interact for defining and applying concepts, each accounting for about 40-44% of variance — related