Exploring the use of productive failure to learn ecology in a virtual world: influence of self-efficacy and the use of learning strategies

This study explores the use of an innovative approach, called Productive failure with a virtual world (PF-VW) to learn difficult ecology knowledge and promote transfer in secondary science classrooms. PF is an alternative learning sequence design to the more common direct instruction (DI). A quasi-experimental design was employed with an experimental PF treatment group (N = 45) and a comparison DI treatment group (N = 41). The results show that within the same virtual world (VW), the PF group outperformed the DI group on transfer scores. This research further explored whether students' self-efficacy and the learning strategies use can affect students' learning in a PF-VW. The results indicate that learning strategies use was positively associated with the posttest scores of explanatory ecology knowledge regardless of the type of instruction. In contrast, no significant relationship was found between self-efficacy and any type of learning outcomes. Furthermore, neither self-efficacy nor the use of learning strategies moderated the positive effects of PF on learning either explanatory knowledge or promoting transfer.