Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Examples play a critical role in guiding the acquisition of cognitive skills. W e have argued that students need to apply the knowledge gathered from studying examples to solve analogous problems for that knowledge to be effective. There is a tradeoff between the active nature of constructing solutions and the facilitating effect of guiding problem solving with a worked example. The present study examined the impact of self-explanations on the effectiveness of examples in guiding later problem solving. W e found that within a learning environment which provided direct support for the self-explanation of worked examples, such study could be as effective as direct problem solving practice.