有意味学習の実験的研究 I

有意味学習の優位

抄録

We defined here the process of meaningful learning as follows: identifying equivalence (in the widest meaning) between incoming information and stored information, by transforming the former. An experiment of successive paired-associate learning was undertaken to compare the learning performance between 2 conditions of preceding learning (List 1 & 2), under one of which Ss could learn meaningfully, though Ss of both conditions were required to learn the same material. In one condition, Ss could learn meaningfully, i.e., they could find equivalence between stored information (lexical meaning of words) and learning materials of List 3, by displacing components in the response term of the List 3 (using associations learned in List 1 & 2) and integrating them by connectives; in the other condition, Ss could not find equivalence by such transformations and had to learn material of List 3 in rote manner. (See Table 1) 32 undergraduate students served as Ss.
Results: the effectiveness of meaningful learning (as against rote learning) was clearly shown. (See Table 7) Furthermore, two different alternative explanations of the results were eliminated by using auxiliary lists. (See Table 3)
The first alternative is that integration of R terms of List 3 could be facilitated by the fact that specific combinations of NS learned in List 2 were used as components of List 3. This facilitation effect was proved to be negligible, however, by the performance of control gr., Ss of which learned List 3′ which had the same R terms as, but different S terms from, List 3, so that the pair could not be learned meaningfully. (See Table 8)
The second alternative is that the effectiveness of meaningful learning could be explained in more traditional manner, that is, by facilitating effect of mediated association and positive transfer by the common element. However this aiternative was also rejected by the performance of another control gr., Ss of which learned List 3″ which had the same S terms and the same components (NS) of R terms but had different inappropriate connectives. (See also Table 8)