Matching Items (2)
Filtering by

Clear all filters

152920-Thumbnail Image.png

Grounding concepts: physical interaction can provide minor benefit to category learning

Description
Categories are often defined by rules regarding their features. These rules may be intensely complex yet, despite the complexity of these rules, we are often able to learn them with sufficient practice. A possible explanation for how we arrive at consistent category judgments despite these difficulties would be that we…

Categories are often defined by rules regarding their features. These rules may be intensely complex yet, despite the complexity of these rules, we are often able to learn them with sufficient practice. A possible explanation for how we arrive at consistent category judgments despite these difficulties would be that we may define these complex categories such as chairs, tables, or stairs by understanding the simpler rules defined by potential interactions with these objects. This concept, called grounding, allows for the learning and transfer of complex categorization rules if said rules are capable of being expressed in a more simple fashion by virtue of meaningful physical interactions. The present experiment tested this hypothesis by having participants engage in either a Rule Based (RB) or Information Integration (II) categorization task with instructions to engage with the stimuli in either a non-interactive or interactive fashion. If participants were capable of grounding the categories, which were defined in the II task with a complex visual rule, to a simpler interactive rule, then participants with interactive instructions should outperform participants with non-interactive instructions. Results indicated that physical interaction with stimuli had a marginally beneficial effect on category learning, but this effect seemed most prevalent in participants were engaged in an II task.
ContributorsCrawford, Thomas (Author) / Homa, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / McBeath, Michael (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
158292-Thumbnail Image.png

Teaching Academic Writing for Engineering Students: An Embodied, Rhetorical Approach

Description
This dissertation details an action research study designed to teach engineering students enrolled in a First Year Composition course understand and learn to use effective conventions of written communication. Over the course of one semester, students participated in an intervention that included embodied and constructive pedagogical practices within a…

This dissertation details an action research study designed to teach engineering students enrolled in a First Year Composition course understand and learn to use effective conventions of written communication. Over the course of one semester, students participated in an intervention that included embodied and constructive pedagogical practices within a rhetorical framework. The theoretical perspectives include Martha Kolln’s rhetorical grammar framework, embodied cognition, and Chi’s ICAP hypothesis. The study was conducted using an explanatory multi-methodological approach. The majority of students demonstrated that in their post-intervention writing samples, their ability to use effective conventions had improved. Over the course of the study, students’ attitudes about writing improved as did their self-efficacy about their writing ability.
ContributorsEllsworth, Allison Jane Troe (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Wolf, Leigh (Committee member) / Brumberger, Eva (Committee member) / Kellam, Nadia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020