R.Borer Dez The utility of implicit learning in the teaching of rules Bjorn Saetrevik, Rolf Reber, Petter Sannum In: Learning and Instruction 16 (2006)

R.Borer Dez Introduction 2. Experimental setting 3. Results 4. Discussion

R.Borer Dez Implicit Learning (Reber 1967) Describes a situation, where a person acquires knowledge about covariations („rules“) in the environment ->without explicit intention of learning, -> without awareness of the learning process and -> without the knowledge of what has been learned. Introduction

R.Borer Dez Implicit Learning in Language Teaching Incidental learning is the way how pre-school children learn speaking (and many other skills!) Several studies have shown the tremendous significance of incidental learning for language-teaching in a school context - Acquisition of vocabulary - Spelling - Grammar rely at least as much on incidental than on explicit/formal learning This holds for all ages from primary school children to adults and for First and second language learners Review in Elley, 2005 Introduction

R.Borer Dez Implicit learning of rules in language teaching Role of implicit and explicit processes in Learning from Examples: A Synergistic effect Mathews etal, 1989 Implicit learning is an important factor for learning of an artificial grammar Implicit learning and tacit knowledge. Journal of experimental Psychology: General, 118(3), Reber,A.S The rules of an artificial grammar can be acquired incidentially Characteristics of dissociable human learning systems: Shanks, D. R., & St. John, M. F Participants in such experi- ments do not learn an abstracted rule, but extract some probabilistic information about the composition of sequences Implicit learning out of the lab: The case of orthographic regularities. Pacton, S., Perruchet, P., Fayol, M., & Cleeremans, A Real- life learning of orthographic regularities is implicit, but the observed transfer decrement runs against the idea of rule abstraction and supports the action of mechanisms that exploit statistical regularities of the material. Introduction

R.Borer Dez Research questions 1.Can Implicit Learning be shown in a non-language context and in a classroom setting? 2. Does implicit learning of Rules take place? Experimental Procedures

R.Borer Dez Experimental setting Participants Pupils of elementary school, Years old Material Graphical representations of molecules, where each atomic bond Is represented by a bar Procedure Participants were shown the graphical representations and tested For rule learning under different conditions. Experimental Procedures

R.Borer Dez Experiment 1a After exposure to correct chemical molecules the participants were told that the stimuli were structured by a rule and asked to discriminate between correct and incorrect novel molecules. The same question was given to students which had been exposed to insignificant stimuli. Result None of the two group performed significantly over chance level. Results

R.Borer Dez Experiment 1b Memorization groupMemorize the molecules Count Atoms groupCount all atoms in the molecules presented Count C-Bonds groupCount bonds of C-Atoms Verify Rule groupVerify the rule, that C-Atoms always have 4 bonds Results Count Atoms MemorizationCount BondsVerify Rule Performance Effect size to chance level Explicit knowledge 1/212/2012/1715/18 Results

R.Borer Dez Focusing on rule-relevant features leads to high task performance and to increased explicit knowledge. Implicit learning takes place but only to a minor extent Results

R.Borer Dez Experiment 2 The literature is unclear on whether implicit learning outcome depends on the complexity of the task. Experiment two therefore tested the same setting with less complex stimuli. Results Count Atoms MemorizationCount BondsVerify Rule Performance Effect size to chance level Explicit knowledge 0/150/146/1311/13 Results

R.Borer Dez  Implicit learning takes place in learning of chemical bonding rules in a classroom setting  The extent of incidential learning is small compared to explicit learning and depends a) on the time b) on the complexity of the material  Implicit rule learning could not be shown Discussion

R.Borer Dez References Elley, W.B In praise of incidental learning: Lessons from some empirical findings on language acquisition. http//cela.albany.edu/reports/inpraise/main.html ( Dez 2005) Mathews etal, Role of implicit and explicit processes in Learning from Examples: A Synergistic effect J of experimental psychology:Learning, Memory and Cognition Vol. 15/ : 1989 Pacton, S., Perruchet, P., Fayol, M., & Cleeremans, A Implicit learning out of the lab: The case of orthographic regularities. Journal of Experimental Psycholology: General, 130(3), 401e426. Reber A.S Implicit leaerning of artificial grammars. Journal of Verbal learning and Verbal Behaviour,6, 317 – 327 Reber,A.S Implicit learning and tacit knowledge. Journal of experimental Psychology: General, 118(3), References

R.Borer Dez Reber,A.S Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: An essay on the cognitive unconscious. London: Oxford University Press Robinson,P Generalizability and automaticity of second language learning under implicit, incidental, enhanced and instructed conditions. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, Shanks,D.R. and St.John,M.F Characteristics of dissociable human learning systems. Behavioural and Brain sciences, 17(3), References