The Effect Of Learning Hydrocarbon Covalent Bond Structural Formula By Correct And Incorrect Combined Worked-examples

In previous studies, few researchers had paid attention to the role of incorrect worked-example in worked-example learning. Furthermore, they drew different conclusions. We thought that the outcomes would be better when using the combination of correct and incorrect worked-examples compared with the correct worked-examples only in worked-example learning.This hypothesis was tested by three experiments in this research which used hydrocarbon structural formulas of organic chemistry as the materials and the high school students of grade one were recruited to participated in. Single-factor design was implemented in each experiment. All the hydrocarbon structural formulas were selected from chemistry textbook of Senior Two. A total of 240 subjects were assigned to the three experiments (60 participated in Experiment 1, 90 participated in Experiment 2 and 90 participated in Experiment 3). They all participated in pre-test, worked-example learning and post-test in quiet classrooms.The results are the following: (1)Experiment 1 showed that the effect of combination of correct and incorrect worked-example learning was significantly better than the single correct worked-example learning;(2) Experiment 2 showed that the scores achieved from the combination which contained equal number of correct and incorrect worked-examples were significantly better than the scores achieved from the combination group in which the number of correct worked-examples was larger than that of incorrect ones. At the same time, the scores achieved from the combination which contained equal number of correct and incorrect worked-examples were significantly better than the scores achieved from the combination group in which the number of correct worked-examples was smaller than that of incorrect ones. (such as the proportion of correct and incorrect worked-examples was 2∶6 or 6∶2 in this study ). In addition, the scores achieved from the combination group in which the number of correct worked-examples was larger than that of incorrect ones were higher than the scores achieved from the combination group in which the number of correct worked-examples was smaller than that of incorrect ones, but not significantly; (3) Experiment 3 showed that the effect was the most significant when correct and incorrect worked examples were matched; the effect obtained from the combination group in which correct worked examples were put before the incorrect ones was worse than the effect of the matched group; the effect obtained from the combination group in which correct worked examples were put after the incorrect ones was the worst.The conclusion derived from this study is that the learning outcomes could be promoted when using appropriate incorrect worked-example in worked-example learning. The effect is better when there're the same number of correct and incorrect worked-examples in correct and incorrect worked-examples learning of hydrocarbon covalent bond structural formula. Especially when one correct and one incorrect worked-example are matched to be present, learners would get the best scores.