Innovation and efficiency were examined for their effects on collaboration and learning in two experiments with university students. From the first experiment, the Innovation task promoted more knowledge-sharing behaviors than the Efficiency task. In the second experiment (built from the first experiment), participants learned about the Chi-square formula and their understanding of it was assessed with basic calculation questions, comprehension questions, and difficult transfer problems. As part of the transfer problems, a preparation for future learning (PFL) assessment was used to measure participants' ability to adapt their knowledge of the chi-square formula (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). Participants in the Innovation condition scored significantly higher on the transfer problems, and Innovation dyads showed he greatest performance on the target PFL question.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education