Vicarious learning from dialogue and discourse - A controlled comparison

This study examined learning in the domain of sentence parsing and syntax t ree-diagram construction. The aim of the study was to assess whether subjec ts could learn 'vicariously' from recordings of interactions between a prev ious student and a tutor. Four intervention conditions and a control condition were compared. Subject s in a 'dialogue' group (DL) read printed tutorial notes and subsequently ' vicariously' viewed dynamic (animated) recordings of tree diagrams being co nstructed by a previous student in the presence of a tutor. The discourse (DI) condition was similar except that subjects viewed record ings of tree diagrams being constructed by a tutor who concurrently verbali sed instructional discourse. In a third condition (DO), subjects viewed tree-diagram construction animat ion clips which were not annotated with either dialogue or discourse. In a linear text (LT) condition, subjects were given only printed tutorial notes . A control (CO) condition involved pre and post testing without any interv ention. Results indicated that the dialogue condition was as effective as the disco urse condition. This provides support for contention that 're-usable' dialo gue is a useful resource for the vicarious learner. Another finding was tha t un-annotated animated diagrams were surprisingly effective. Several reaso ns for their effectiveness are suggested from the literature on instruction al animations.