Combining examples and procedures

The present study evaluated three instructional methods for solving algebra word problems. The instructions consisted of either an example, a set of procedures, or both the example and procedures. The procedures were rules designed to aid in solving word problems. The example was a worked-out solution to a word problem that was representative of the test problems. The subject's task was to study the instructional material and then generate the equations needed to solve the subsequent test problems. The test problems differed from the example by either 0, 1, 2, or 3 transformations. The results showed that subjects in the example and example-plus-procedure groups performed the best but the difference between these two groups was not significant. The procedures alone were relatively ineffective. A mathematical model is proposed to explain how the performance was influenced by the three types of instructional material and four levels of transformation.