In this study we investigated which instructional method is suitable for university students to learn how to write an academic text. We have compared observational learning with learning by doing, and we have explored the effects of writing preference (planning versus revising) on academic writing performance. In an experiment 145 undergraduate students were assigned to either an observational learning or learning-by-doing condition. In observational learning participants learned by observing a weak and strong models’ writing processes. In learning by doing they learned by performing writing tasks. Prior to the sessions participants were labeled as either planners or revisers based on a writing style questionnaire. The effects of the sessions were analyzed with a 2x2 between-subjects design with instructional method (observational learning, learning by doing) and writing preference (plan, revise) as factors. To measure academic writing performance the participants wrote an introduction to an empirical research paper.We found no main effects for instructional method and writing preference. Simple effect analyses did reveal that revisers benefitted somewhat more from observational learning than planners. Planners performed equally well in observational learning and learning by doing. However, planners who learned by doing did seem to outperform revisers who learned by doing. Our study suggests that observational learning presents interesting opportunities for academic writing courses. However, more research on the interplay between writing strategy and instructional method is called for.

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> Much of the empirical research on the effectiveness of different instructional designs has focused on declarative tasks, where a learner acquires knowledge about a certain topic. It is unclear to what extent findings for learning declarative tasks (which are not consistent on all aspects) carry over to learning procedural tasks, where a learner acquires a certain skill. In this paper, we describe an experiment studying a specific kind of procedural instructions, namely exercises for the prevention of repetitive strain injury (RSI), taking information modality (text versus picture versus film clip) and difficulty degree of the exercises (easy versus difficult) into account. In the experiment, participants had to learn RSI exercises and were asked to execute them. The results showed that an instruction in a picture lead to the shortest learning times followed by an instruction in a film clip. An instruction in text led to the longest learning times. For the amount of practicing the exercises during the learning phase, it was found that the participants in the film clip condition hardly engaged in practicing the exercises during the learning phase. The participants in the picture condition engaged in a moderate amount of practicing of the exercises during the learning phase. The participants in the text condition engaged in the most practicing during the learning phase. The results concerning the execution times showed that an instruction in a picture led to the lowest execution times followed by an instruction in a film clip. The instruction in text led to longest execution times. Finally, for the amount of correctly executed exercises, it was found that learning from a film clip led to the highest learning performance, both for easy and for difficult exercises. Learning from an instruction in text led to a fairly good learning performance, both for easy and difficult exercises. Learning from a picture led to a good learning performance for the easy exercises, but the performance dropped for the difficult exercises. </para>

We report on an exploratory experimental comparison of two different thinking aloud approaches in a usability test that focused on navigation problems in a highly nonstandard Web site. One approach is a rigid application of Ericsson and Simon's (for original paper see Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data, MIT Press (1993)) procedure. The other is derived from Boren and Ramey's (for original paper see ibid., vol. 43, no. 3, p. 261-278 (2000)) proposal based on speech communication. The latter approach differs from the former in that the experimenter has more room for acknowledging (mm-hmm) contributions from subjects and has the possibility of asking for clarifications and offering encouragement. Comparing the verbal reports obtained with these two methods, we find that the process of thinking aloud while carrying out tasks is not affected by the type of approach that was used. The task performance does differ. More tasks were completed in the B and R condition, and subjects were less lost. Nevertheless, subjects' evaluations of the Web site quality did not differ, nor did the number of different navigation problems that were detected.