Discovery and Expository Learning Compared: Their Effects on Independent and Dependent Students

Abstract

This study compared the effects of discovery (DI.) and exposition-application (LA) teaching formats on students with independent and dependent learning styles. The DI. method encourages the learner to generate conclusions inductively from ambiguous materials, whereas in the EA format the structure of the material is presented at the start to help guide student learning. Independent students were expected to learn more productively via the freedom of the DL situation, while the structure of the LA format should be beneficial to dependent learners. On a posttest imniediately following instructions, the DI. format was superior for both subgroups of students. The superiority was markedly greater for the independent students, so that the predicted aptitude-treatment interaction (All) was also present: independent students outperformed dependent students in the DL condition, while the reverse was true in the LA setting.