Self-Explantation Effect In The Learning Of Planning Of Writing

The effect of self-explanation is firstly found in the study of learning from worked-out example. There are some consensus in researchers and dispute as well, since the researchers have studied the effect for two decades. The thesis continues the research focus on the part of controversy. The thesis is composed of five parts.The first part of the thesis mainly reviews previous studies of self-explanation. The evidences that support the consensus and the question that stay opening are discussed. The researches show that self-explanation existed in various knowledge learning, including well-defined domain and ill-defined domain. The researchers found that self-explanation prompting and training could improve learner's performance of learning. Self-explanation effect is consistent with Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), Mental Model theory, and Construction-Integration Model. There are four questions have no satisfied answer:how many kinds of self-explaining are there? What's the relation between the self-explanation and monitor, Time of learning and cognitive structure that learner owned?The second part of the thesis specifies the design of this research and the experimental procedures. Firstly, on the basis of literature review, it conducts a research in the domain of writing learning, especially writing planning. It proposes six research questions as following:1. Does the manner of example presenting effect learning? 2. Does the manner of example presenting effect self-explaining of learner? 3. When learners are learning how to plan the writing by worked-out example, is there self-explanation effect? 4. Is self-explanation effect caused by learning time or not? 5. Does learner's monitor for his/her own cognitive processes effect his/her self-explanation? 6. Does the cognitive structure effect learners'self-explanation? It specifies the subjects, experimental materials, procedures, and the method of scoring.The third part of the thesis discusses the results of the experimental research in the title of six questions. The manner of example presenting does affect learner's achievement and self-explaining behavior. Self-explanation effect does exist in the domain of learning how to plan the writing by worked-out example. Self-explanation effect is not caused by learning time. The relationship between monitor of cognitive processes and self-explanation is not straightforward. Learners'knowledge in one domain does affect their behavior of self-explanation.The last two parts of the thesis summarizes the conclusions of the whole research, discusses the theoretical and instructional meanings of the research, and points out some disadvantage of this study and the future research suggestions.