EFFECTS OF RULE SELECTION TRAINING IN TASKS REQUIRING BOTH RULE SELECTION AND RULE APPLICATION CAPABILITIE

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects rule selection training would have on performance in tasks requiring the selection of an appropriate rule from a set of related rules. It was anticipated that a treatment program designed to promote rule application skills would be less effective than a program designed to teach both rule application and rule selection skills.;Two experimental tasks were used, each involving a different set of related rules. One task included the rules governing the drawing of diagrams (Experiment I). The other task included the computational procedures used to solve two kinds of probability problems, i.e., addition-rule problems and multiplication-rule problems (Experiment II). Two seventh grade classes served as subjects in each experiment. Pretests were administered prior to the administration of treatment programs.;In both experiments, students were randomly assigned to either a Rule Selection Training group or a No Rule Selection Training group. Students in the Rule Selection Training group were provided multiple opportunities to reach mastery performance levels for both the rule application skills and the rule selection skill. In contrast, those in the No Rule Selection Training group were given multiple mastery opportunities for the rule application skills only.;In Experiments I and II, nearly all students in both groups demonstrated mastery on the rule application skills. Of students in the Rule Selection Training group, 74% in Experiment I and 62% in Experiment II met mastery on activities designed to assess the rule selection skill.;The primary dependent variable for both experiments was a retention test designed to assess the learner's ability to select the appropriate rule. In Experiment I, students in the Rule Selection Training group were more successful on the rule selection retention test. In Experiment II, students in the Rule Selection Training group were more successful on the rule selection-and-application test for addition-rule problems, as measured by the number of problems correctly solved (rule selection-and-application) as well as the number of times the wrong computational procedure was used (rule selection errors). There were no significant differences between the two groups for multiplication-rule problems for either the number of problems solved or the number of rule selection errors.;It was concluded that rule application practice to mastery levels may be neither an efficient approach nor a sufficient condition for teaching sets of related rules.