The relationship between the number of attributes and the number of moves in conjunctive concept teaching strategies

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the number of relevant attributes a concept possesses and the number of moves in a teaching strategy necessary to teach the concept. The effects of varying the number and kind of exemplification moves and the sequencing in the presentation of the concepts was also investigated. There are basically two kinds of moves used in teaching concepts--characterization moves and exemplification moves. Characterization moves provide information about the characteristics or properties of the objects in the referent set. Exemplification moves identify members or nonmembers of the referent set. A characterization-exemplification-characterization (CEC) strategy was used to teach four conjunctive concepts from the mathematical theory of relations in a first mathematics course for prospective elementary teachers in eight treatments. For all treatments the strategy for each concept began and ended with a characterization move. Exemplification moves varied. For each concept, the first treatment contained two examples, the second treatment contained one example and one nonexample. The third treatment contained four examples and the fourth two examples and two nonexamples for each concept. In each of these treatments the two-attributes concepts (A concepts) were presented first (AB sequence). The four remaining treatments were exactly the same except the three-attributes concepts (B concepts) were presented first (BA sequence). ...