Acquiring Procedural Skills from Lesson Sequences.

Abstract

This report provides an informal overview of a theory that describes how people learn certain procedural skills, such as arithmetic and algebra, from multi-lesson curricula. The central hypothesis is that students and teachers obey conventions that cause the goal hierarchy of the acquired procedure to be a particular structural function of the sequential ordering of lessons. This learning theory is an extension of Repair Theory, which describes how people mix interpretation and a certain type of meta-level problem solving as they try to solve practice problems. The learning theory has been embedded in a program that generates detailed predictions about the products of published curricula. The predictions have been tested against data from several thousand mathematics students. Keywords: Skill acquisition, Cognitive science, Procedural skills, Bugs, Felicity Conditions, Repairs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 13, 1985
Accession Number
ADA164580

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  • Kurt A. Vanlehn

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  • PARC

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