Sarah Shi Hui Wong

Yale-NUS College · Division of Social Sciences

Reasoning and arguing well lies at the core of thinking and constructing knowledge about complex, controversial issues. Leveraging the techniques of learning by teaching and deliberate erring, the present study developed and tested a novel intervention—learning by misteaching—to boost argumentative reasoning. University students (N = 208) were trai...

How can we strategically and systematically learn from our errors? Over their long history, errors have traditionally been prevented entirely or, at best, permitted to occur spontaneously. Across three experiments, we tested and found evidence for a counterintuitive phenomenon that we termed the derring effect—deliberately committing errors even wh...

Unlabelled: Transfer of learning is a fundamental goal of education but is challenging to achieve, especially where far transfer to remote contexts is at stake. How can we improve learners' flexible application of knowledge to distant domains? In a counterintuitive phenomenon termed the derring effect, deliberately committing and correcting errors...

Asking good questions is vital for scientific learning and discovery, but improving this complex skill is a formidable challenge. Here, we show in two experiments (N = 152) that teaching others—learning-by-teaching—enhances one’s ability to generate higher-order research questions that create new knowledge, relative to two other well-established ge...

In two experiments (N = 200), we compared the effects of longhand note-taking, photographing lecture materials with a smartphone camera, and not taking any notes on video-recorded lecture learning. Experiment 1 revealed a longhand-superiority effect: Longhand note-takers outperformed photo-takers and control learners on a recall test, notwithstandi...

Generating good questions is central to scientific inquiry. How can we improve this skill in classrooms? This field experiment showed that teaching others enhances students’ ability to generate higher-order research questions that create new knowledge. Whereas learning-by-teaching often involves delivering face-to-face or video-recorded lectures, w...

How can students effectively learn and transfer mathematical procedures to solve new problems? Here, we tested the effects of deliberately committing and correcting errors during mathematical problem-solving practice on transfer of the learned procedures. In two experiments, university students were instructed on mathematical algorithms (synthetic...

The learning benefits of retrieval practice have been linked to reduced mind-wandering, but the reasons why testing offers such an attentional advantage have scarcely been explored. Here, we investigate the extent that the inherent change in learning context during retrieval practice (i.e., interleaved study and retrieval) attenuates mind-wandering...

Our civilization recognizes that errors can be valuable learning opportunities, but for decades, they have widely been avoided or, at best, allowed to occur as serendipitous accidents. The present research tested whether greater learning success could paradoxically be achieved through making errors by intentional design, relative to traditional err...

Learning by teaching others is a potent educational strategy, but its implementation is typically cumbersome. This study (N = 108) investigated “silent teaching”—writing a verbatim teaching script—as a convenient approach for independent learning, while assessing whether the teaching benefit is a production benefit. Learners studied a science text...

Musical interval identification is a valuable skill for holistic and sophisticated musicianship. Yet, discriminating and identifying intervals is often challenging, especially for musical novices. Drawing on cognitive psychological principles, we built two experiments that investigated the utility of interleaving in enhancing novices’ aural identif...

The ability to recognize and distinguish among varying musical styles is essential to developing aural skills and musicianship. Yet, this task can be difficult for music learners, particularly nonexperts. To address this challenge and guide music education practice, this study drew on cognitive psychological principles to investigate the effect of...

The effects of retrieval practice on complex, meaningful learning outcomes that require more than just basic recall are of ongoing interest in the test-enhanced learning literature. Across two experiments, we investigated the extent that retrieval practice boosts integrative argumentation—the integration of opposing viewpoints to form conclusions....

Errors are often perceived as undesirable events to be avoided at all costs. However, a growing body of research suggests that making errors is, in fact, beneficial for learning. Building on human resource development literature, the present review proposes a 3P framework of approaches to errors during learning: prevention (avoiding or observing er...

The impact of retrieval practice on analogical-problem-solving performance was investigated using a complex, educationally relevant task. Participants studied a statistical hypothesis testing scenario and practiced recalling the material or repeatedly studied it. Participants then completed a final test either 5 minutes or 1 week later involving a...

We empirically investigated the effect of mental imagery on young children’s music compositional creativity. Children aged 5 to 8 years participated in two music composition sessions. In the control session, participants based their composition on a motif that they had created using a sequence of letter names. In the mental imagery session, partici...

Main Study Data. (XLSX)

Research has focused on academic integrity in terms of students’ conduct in relation to university rules and procedures, whereas fewer studies examine student integrity more broadly. Of particular interest is whether students in higher education today conceptualize integrity as comprising such broader attributes as personal and social responsibilit...