Abstract
Two concept-teaching strategies, designed to facilitate the identification process of critical attributes and the formation and elaboration process of a prototype, were compared to test their effectiveness. Results showed the following: (a) Using an analytically organized list of critical attributes and their relationships resulted in better performance than using best examples in classifying newly presented examples during instruction (p < .05), but the former required a longer time to complete the instructional booklet (p < .001); (b) presentation of best examples facilitated prototype formation in memory and resulted in a higher degree of retention (p < .005). Other findings suggest that field-dependent students need more best examples in expository form than do field-independent students to form the conceptual prototype.
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