From guided to self-regulated performance of domain-general skills: The role of peer monitoring during the fading of instructional scripts

The fading of instructional scripts can be regarded as necessary for allowing learners to take over control of their cognitive activities during the acquisition of skills such as argumentation. There is, however, the danger that learners might relapse into novice strategies after script prompts are faded. One possible solution could be monitoring by a peer with respect to the performance of the strategy to be learned. We conducted a 2 × 2-factorial experiment with 126 participants with fading and peer monitoring as between-subjects factors to test the assumptions that (1) the combination of a faded script and peer monitoring has a positive effect on strategy knowledge compared to only one or none of the two types of support; and (2) this effect is due to a greater amount of self-regulated performance of the strategy after the fading of the script when peer monitoring takes place. The findings support these assumptions.

► Fading of a script alone does not foster domain-general strategy knowledge.
► Performance of the strategy declines during the fading of a script.
► Monitoring by a peer keeps performance of the strategy up during script fading.
► Performance of a strategy after fading fosters domain-general strategy knowledge.
► Fading and monitoring by a peer combined foster domain-general strategy knowledge.