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Prior knowledge has long been recognized as an important predictor of learning, yet the term prior knowledge is often applied to related but distinct constructs. We define a specific form of prior knowledge, ancillary knowledge, as knowledge of concepts and skills that enable learners to gain the most from a target lesson. Ancillary knowledge is not prior knowledge of the lesson’s target concepts and skills, and may even fall outside the domain of the lesson. Nevertheless, ancillary knowledge affects learning of the lesson, e.g., lower ancillary knowledge can hinder performance on lesson-related tasks. We measured ancillary knowledge, prior knowledge of the domain, and controlled for general ability, and found that (a) stronger ancillary knowledge and general ability predicted better performance on transfer tasks, but (b) prior knowledge of the domain did not. This research suggests that enhancing instruction by remediating gaps in ancillary knowledge may improve learning in introductory-level courses.

Self-control is involved in numerous outcomes that enhance success in life and optimal functioning. For example, self-control fosters improved health, academic performance, and relationship outcomes. The extensive benefits of self-control have encouraged researchers to investigate methods to harness and improve this ability, one of which is self-control training (SCT). SCT involves practicing self-controlled behaviour in one domain to enhance self-controlled behaviour in other untrained domains (i.e., far transfer). Little is known about the overall efficacy, mechanisms, time-course, and individual differences that might influence the extent to which SCT improves self-controlled behaviour. The current program of research attempts to address the gaps in the literature through the use of meta-analytic, behavioural, and neuroscience methods. In Chapter 2, I conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the overall efficacy of SCT. In Chapter 3, I conducted a large-scale, long-term experiment to investigate whether SCT duration influences far transfer and whether the effects persist over time once SCT ceases. I also investigated the psychological and cognitive mechanisms potentially underlying any improvements. In Chapter 4, I examined the neurological substrates of SCT. In Chapters 3 and 4, I investigated individual differences that might affect the efficacy of SCT. The results of this thesis were mixed. Although the meta-analysis provided evidence for far transfer (Chapter 2), the remaining chapters did not provide a clear picture about mechanisms, time-course, and personality factors that affect SCT. My results suggest that two-weeks of SCT may produce the most reliable far transfer effects and that the benefits might not persist following a delay (Chapter 3). My results also suggest that SCT changes neural substrates, and that these changes correlate with relevant individual differences including trait aggression (Chapter 4). The primary implication from my thesis is tha

Background: Health profession learners can foster clinical reasoning by studying worked examples presenting fully worked out solutions to a clinical problem. It is possible to improve the learning effect of these worked examples by combining them with other learning activities based on concept maps. This study investigated which combinaison of activities, worked examples study with concept map completion or worked examples study with concept map study, fosters more meaningful learning of intervention knowledge in physiotherapy students. Moreover, this study compared the learning effects of these learning activity combinations between novice and advanced learners. Methods: Sixty-one second-year physiotherapy students participated in the study which included a pre-test phase, a 130-min guided-learning phase and a four-week self-study phase. During the guided and self-study learning sessions, participants had to study three written worked examples presenting the clinical reasoning for selecting electrotherapeutic currents to treat patients with motor deficits. After each example, participants engaged in either concept map completion or concept map study depending on which learning condition they were randomly allocated to. Students participated in an immediate post-test at the end of the guided-learning phase and a delayed post-test at the end of the self-study phase. Post-tests assessed the understanding of principles governing the domain of knowledge to be learned (conceptual knowledge) and the ability to solve new problems that have similar (i.e., near transfer) or different (i.e., far transfer) solution rationales as problems previously studied in the examples. Results: Learners engaged in concept map completion outperformed those engaged in concept map study on near transfer (p =.010) and far transfer (p <.001) performance. There was a significant interaction effect of learners' prior ability and learning condition on conceptual knowledge but not on near and

Butler (2010: Experiment 3) showed that retrieval practice enhanced transfer to a new knowledge domain compared to rereading. The first experiment of the present study was a direct replication of Butler's third experiment. Participants studied text passages and then either reread them three times or went through three cycles of cued recall questions (i.e., retrieval practice) with feedback. As in Butler's (2010) experiment, an advantage of retrieval practice on the final far transfer test emerged after 1 week. Additionally, we observed an advantage of retrieval practice on the final test administered after 5 min. However, these advantages might have been due to participants in the retrieval practice condition receiving focused exposure to the key information (i.e., the feedback) that was needed to answer the final test questions. We therefore conducted a second experiment in which we included the retrieval practice condition and the reread condition from our first experiment, as well as a new reread-plus-statements condition. In the reread-plus-statements condition, participants received focused exposure to the key information after they had reread a text. As in Experiment 1, we found a large effect on far transfer when retrieval practice was compared to rereading. However, this effect was substantially reduced when retrieval practice was compared to the reread-plus-statements condition. Taken together, the results of the present experiments demonstrate that Butler's (2010) testing effect in far transfer is robust. Moreover, focused exposure to key information appears to be a significant facto