LEARNING BY EXPLAINING - OR BETTER BY LIS TENING

The effectiveness of cooperative learning arrangements is often attrib uted to the fact that the learners are not only ''passive'' recipients , as is typical of traditional forms of learning, but also ''active'' explainers. The goal of the present experiment was to compare explaini ng vs listening with respect to motivational effects and to learning r esults. 40 first year university students of education learned probabi lity calculus from worked-out examples. They were grouped together in pairs (20 dyads). After an individual learning phase, the two learners were brought together and took over the roles of the explainer and th e listener, respectively. It turned out that the role of the listener was more favorable with respect to both motivational effects and learn ing results. There was some evidence that learners must have some prio r teaching or tutoring experience in order to effectively learn by exp laining.