LEARNING-BY-TEACHING: DO WRITTEN EXPLANATIONS WORK?

Abstract

Learning-by-teaching, which refers to learning benefits from the act of teaching educational materials to others, is a popular learning strategy that is widely implemented in educational institutions. Despite a wealth of evidence demonstrating its effectiveness, the mechanisms behind its effects remains unclear. The present study examined the previous claim that learning by-teaching is merely a special case of retrieval practice, and also evaluate whether learning-by-teaching effects can be achieved through written explanations. Participants studied a lesson on Doppler effect, and was either instructed to restudy their notes, teach the lesson on video, or write a verbatim teaching script as if they were teaching someone. Performance on a delayed free recall test indicates that even in the absence of retrieval, there is improved learning which is solely attributed to learning-by-teaching. Furthermore, the findings also revealed that both modalities of teaching were equally effective. Implications of the findings and future research were discussed.