Classifying the Interventions A typical way of classifying interventions is on the basis of their supporting theories, but too often such t...
Classifying the Interventions A typical way of classifying interventions is on the basis of their supporting theories, but too often such theories are either ambiguous or not mutually exclusive. For example, as already noted, there are many variations on the metacognitive theme, and most theories of intervention now refer to a metacognitive basis. These variations involve self-regulation in some form or another, although some interventions in the recent literature are eclectic or atheoretical. An examination of the thrust or purpose of an intervention is a fruitful way to identify what parameters that particular intervention aims to change: performance, attributions, self-concept, motivation, attitudes, study skills, and so on. These are examined in the present study. Of course, like supporting theories, they are not mutually exclusive, as many interventions are aimed at changing several dependent variables simultaneously. It would be desirable to classify interventions in mutually exclusive terms that relate to the nature of each such intervention.
In other words, we would like to classify interventions in terms of their independent variables rather than in terms of their effects on dependent variables. Such a classification might refer to the structural complexity of interventions and whether they are intended to achieve near or far transfer. The so-called SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982), described in the following section, has been used to order the structure of responses. Because this taxonomy is based on structural complexity, it may readily be adapted to suit the present case. The SOLO Taxonomy: A Hierarchical Model of Learning Outcomes Biggs and Collis (1982) started from a study of learning outcomes in (mainly) high school content domains and found that students learn quite diverse material in stages of ascending structural complexity that display a similar sequence across tasks. This led to the formulation of the SOLO taxonomy, where "SOLO" is an acronym for "structure of the observed learning outcome." This taxonomy makes it possible, in the course of a student's learning a subject, to identify in broad terms the stage at which the student is currently operating. The following stages occur. 103 This content downloaded on Sun, 3 Feb 2013 08:00:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hattie, Biggs, and Purdie
* The student engages in preliminary preparation, but the task itself is not attacked in an appropriate way (prestructural). * One (unistructural) and then several (multistructural) aspects of the task are picked up serially, but are not interrelated. * Several aspects are integrated into a coherent whole (relational). * That coherent whole is generalized to a higher level of abstraction (extended abstract). The SOLO model is readily generalizable, and we use it here to provide a convenient and exclusive system for classifying interventions intended to enhance learning, as is explained and illustrated below. The present classification begins with the unistructural and not the prestructural stage, as the latter by definition refers to an intervention already expected to be unsatisfactory.
An example might be an intervention based on an unacceptable and undeveloped theory base, such as learning in the presence of "good luck" tokens (which may be an interesting question but is not one in which we are interested here). (1) Unistructural. A unistructural intervention is based on one relevant feature or dimension. An example might be an intervention focused on a single point of change, such as coaching on one algorithm, training in underlining, using a mnemonic, or anxiety reduction. The target parameter may be an individual characteristic or a skill or technique.
The essential feature is that it alone is the focus, independently of the context or its adaptation to or modification by content. A typical example of a unistructural intervention is that reported by Scruggs and Mastropieri (1986a), in which a trained experimenter taught students to use a mnemonic strategy for learning information that is not immediately meaningful and which has an abstract, numerical component. In this instance, the material to be learned was the hardness index, from 1 to 10, for each of eight minerals. The content to be learned, however, could just as easily have been drawn from any subject area. There were three experimental conditions involving use of mediating keywords based on imagining pictures linking the numbers indicating hardness (e.g., "one is a bun") with codings of the minerals (e.g., "actor" for the mineral actinolite) in high-, medium-, and low-structure conditions (ranging from supplied to self-generated keywords and pictures), and a control condition. Here the experimental conditions were procedurally simple and direct,
involving essentially one technique (mnemonic) aimed at accurate recall. (2) Multistructural. A multistructural intervention involves a range of independent strategies or procedures, but without any integration or orchestration as to individual differences or demands of content or context. Examples include typical study skills packages taught directively, without a metacognitive or conditional framework. An example is provided by Haslam and Brown (1968), who taught the Brown-Holzman Effective Study Skills Course: High School Level to high school sophomores in twenty 55-minute class periods. The course involved better time utilization, reading and writing techniques, techniques for preparing for and taking examinations, realistic goal setting, student-to-student tips, and the like. In short, it was a typical study skills course. A basic assumption is that all the "study habits" are detachable, teachable, and usable across the board in many school subjects, resulting in greater increases in grade point average than would be found in a control group. Instrumentation included manuals and workbooks developed 104 This content downloaded on Sun, 3 Feb 2013 08:00:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Effects of Study Skills Interventions by Brown and Holzman over several years prior to the study in question.
It is considered multistructural because it comprises a range of skills taught directively. (3) Relational. All the components in a relational intervention are integrated to suit the individual's self-assessment, are orchestrated to the demands of the particular task and context, and are self-regulated with discretion. Metacognitive interventions, emphasizing self-monitoring and self-regulation, would fit into this category, as would many attribution retraining studies. For example, in Relich, Debus, and Walker's (1986) study, a group of sixth graders identified as "learned helpless" and deficient in arithmetic skills were given attribution retraining followed by manipulated success rates in division exercises, so that the beliefs about success and failure set up by the retraining were directly reinforced by the manipulated performances. (4) Extended abstract. In an extended abstract intervention, the integration achieved in the previous category is generalized to a new domain. Interventions with this thrust would be those aiming for far transfer. In theory, Feuerstein's (1969) Instrumental Enrichment program is an example and was the only one we could find in this category. Instrumental Enrichment was initially developed to cater to the learning needs of culturally and economically deprived adolescents who were failing at school. Its emphasis is on active student participation, with much independent work and discussion, concentrating on basic cognitive processes, problem solving tactics, and motivational factors. Curriculum content is deliberately excluded; instead, there is an emphasis on teaching thinking about thinking, learning about learning, and cognitive and metacognitive processes. There is a battery of curriculum material with titles such as "organization of dots," "analytic perception," "orientation in space," "family relations," "comparisons," "classification," "numerical progressions," "stencil design," "temporal relations," "transitive relations," and "syllogisms." These exercises are aimed at nurturing learning sets and systematic data-gathering behavior, developing skills in comparative analysis to improve relational insights, and removing attitudinal inhibitions that often operate in lowachieving adolescents. It is claimed that none of the Instrumental Enrichment tasks are designed to "teach to the test." The Feuerstein packages are classified as extended abstract on the grounds that the intervention aims to produce structural changes in an individual's cognitive functioning to the point where autonomous or independent learning can occur. The Instrumental Enrichment exercises are designed to develop specific cognitive and metacognitive skills necessary not only for success in tests of general ability but also in everyday classroom tasks that require the student to apply abstract principles such as those relating to perception, reasoning, planning, communication, efficiency, elaboration, organization, and relationships. The interaction of transfer and the SOLO taxonomy. A program may aim to enhance performances that are either closely related or distantly related to the training tasks. The former kind of transfer is called near, and the latter kind of transfer is calledfar.
Whether a program aims at near or far transfer is independent of its structure in SOLO terms, although the question of near and far transfer interacts with this taxonomic system. Unistructural models may, in theory, aim at near or far transfer, but direct training in a single skill is generally in the context of near transfer. Multistructural and relational models can readily be applied to 105 This content downloaded on Sun, 3 Feb 2013 08:00:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hattie, Biggs, and Purdie situations testing near and far transfer. Multistructural models are frequently constructed on the assumption that providing students with a wide range of study procedures would enable them to operate effectively in a wide range of situations, in the typical study skills training format. Relational models are most frequently focused on the context in which they are used, but if the individual acquires strategies and the conditional knowledge of when and where they might work, some degree of far transfer might be expected. Extended abstract models, in being involved with learning how to learn, for example, are essentially concerned with far transfer.
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