Researchers at Ohio State University have set out to determine whether or not these kinds of examples reinforce the math behind them. They conducted a study in which college students were taught a simple but unfamiliar system. Some learned it through abstract symbols and some learned it through concrete examples. They were then tested on what they were told was a children’s game, the rules of which used the same math as they were just taught. Those who had learned the system through symbols did well in figuring out the game; those who had learned through examples did no better than if they were completely guessing. The experiment proved the researcher’s hypothesis that real-world examples tend to distract from the math and that students are likely to have difficulty transferring their knowledge to new problems without a purely abstract foundation. They are now turning their attention to younger learners to see just how pervasive the effect can be. Via NY Times
