Three instructional supports for scaffolding preservice teachers' revision of mathematical explanations

Design · All designs
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description

The article proposes and tests three distinct supports for provoking revision of fraction comparison explanations: correct examples, defining features, and error reflection. As printed, "PSTs were randomly assigned to one of three instructional support conditions to scaffold their analysis and revision of their explanations for fraction comparisons." Correct examples provided a complete, correct explanation with a fraction-strip diagram; defining features provided "a list of steps on how to completely explain the fraction comparison" without the answer or visual; error reflection presented a fictitious student's explanation with one incorrect component and one omission. The framework links revision thinking to metacognitive monitoring and calibration.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

• Participants must first produce a first-draft explanation and confidence rating before encountering the condition-specific support
• The supports must be presented between the first draft and the revision opportunity

Constraints

• The error reflection condition did not ask participants to reflect on their own errors, so the authors state they do not expect that form of reflection to impact metacognitive monitoring in particular

Target Learners

• elementary pre-service teachers in mathematics content courses

Learning Goals

• explaining and justifying fraction magnitude comparisons
• metacognitive monitoring and calibration of one's own explanations

Claims

• Correct Exemplars Improve Pst Fraction Explanations [+M]
• Correct Exemplars Beat Defining Features For Error Detection [+M]

Related Designs

Examples

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Key Sources

• Guba, T.-P., Barbieri, C. A., Jansen, A., & Morris, A. (2026). Supports for preservice teachers' metacognitive monitoring and explanations of fraction comparisons. Instructional Science (2026) 54:18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-025-09773-0

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	design
id	three-instructional-supports-pst-explanation-revision
title	Three instructional supports for scaffolding preservice teachers' revision of mathematical explanations
description	The article proposes and tests three distinct supports for provoking revision of fraction comparison explanations: correct examples, defining features, and error reflection.
status	review
generated	by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-18
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — guba-2026

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