Investigating the Effects of Cognitive and Metacognitive Scaffolding on Learners using a Learning by Teaching Environment

Abstract

We compared the effects of cognitive and metacognitive scaffolding on students’ performance within a learning-by-teaching intelligent tutor for algebra. Results revealed that metacognitive scaffolding facilitated learning for low prior ability learners while high prior ability students’ performance was obstructed by their refusal to follow the hints. Moreover, the study found that metacognitive actions related to self-regulatory learning’s reflection subfunction correlates negatively to the learning outcomes of low ability students.