Features of Computerized Multimedia Environments that Support Vicarious Learning Processes - New Science of Learning - page 59

1994; King, Staffieri, & Adelgais, 1998; Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Students rarely
ask questions of any kind in the classroom, however, and those they do ask usually
involve only shallow reasoning (e.g., Dillon, 1988; Graesser & Person, 1994; Van
der Meij, 1988). Deep questions usually require logical reasoning, causal reason-
ing, or goal-orientation reasoning (Bloom, 1956; Flavell, 1963; Graesser & Person,
1994; Piaget, 1952, 1968). These involve such question stems as “What happens
when...?”, “How does the...?”, and “Why was the...?” Deep questions may be con-
trasted with shallow questions (Bloom, 1956; Gholson & Craig, 2006; Graesser &
Person, 1994). The latter usually require one-word answers. They include stems
such as “Is it true that...?”, “Did X or Y occur?”, and “What's the membrane
between...?”
Craig et al. (2000) explored the use of vicarious dialog designed to induce col-
lege students to ask deep questions (Kintsch, 1998; Palinscar & Brown, 1984). A
computer-controlled virtual tutor and a virtual tutee, located on opposite sides of
a monitor, discussed a series of eight computer-literacy topics. Pictures relevant to
each topic under discussion were also sequentially presented, located between the
two virtual agents.
During acquisition vicarious learners either overheard the virtual tutor carry on
a scripted dialog with the virtual tutee on the course content of each topic ( dialog
condition) or they overheard the tutor present a monolog-like discourse ( monolog
condition) concerning the same content. At the outset of each topic the virtual tutor
presented a brief information delivery. Then, in the monolog condition, the virtual
tutee asked one broad question that provided a context for what followed. The vir-
tual tutor then answered in a monolog discourse that presented all the information
on that topic. In the dialog condition, each brief information delivery was followed
by a lively series of conversational exchanges. The virtual tutee asked a series of
deep questions, a total of 66 across the course content presented on the eight topics
(Bloom, 1956; Gholson & Craig, 2006; Graesser & Person, 1994), which the vir-
tual tutor immediately answered. The exact words spoken by the virtual tutor were
identical in both conditions. At the conclusion of acquisition, free-recall questions
on the discourse content were administered prior to a transfer task.
In transfer the learners were presented with a series of eight new computer-
literacy topics and were given the opportunity to ask questions on each. At the outset
of each topic the virtual tutor presented a brief information delivery and immediately
told the learner to direct queries to any information that would help them understand
the topic. The experimenter immediately answered each. Learners continued their
queries until they said they were finished with the topic. This was followed by a brief
information delivery by the virtual tutor on the next topic, etc. Free-recall questions
on the discourse content were administered after the last transfer topic was finished.
In the transfer task learners in the dialog condition took significantly more con-
versational turns, generated significantly more queries, and exhibited a significantly
greater proportion of deep questions than those in the monolog condition. On the
free-recall questions following transfer, students in the dialog condition also wrote
significantly more content than those in the monolog condition. Clearly vicarious
learners who overheard dialog that included deep questions in the original task