Friday, April 29
03:45 pm – 04:00 pm
Multi-Interest
Session 23

Ashley Bourgoyne, BS
Level of Instruction: Intermediate   –   Tuquoise I & II

This study was designed to determine if high-variability visual input would facilitate the development of conceptual representations of academic vocabulary for typical and language-learning disabled college-aged students. Students were trained on vocabulary in high- and low-variability conditions. Their learning was assessed via a posttest which required them to identify, out of a field of four, both trained and novel images. Participants also rated novel images, both accurate and inaccurate, on a scale of 1 to 9 (accurate/inaccurate) in order to assess their conceptual representations of the new vocabulary. Results showed that both typical and language-learning disabled participants were equally accurate on trained and novel items in the high-variability condition, but were less accurate on novel items only in the low-variability condition, though the language-learning disabled participants showed less learning overall. Participants were more successful at rating accurate items in the high-variability condition than the low-variability condition, but were equivalently bad at successfully rating the inaccurate images. High-variability learning conditions may facilitate learner generalization to novel representations and recognition of accurate examples of academic concepts in typical and language-learning disabled college students.

Learner Outcomes:  At the completion of this presentation, participants will be able to
articulate why variability of input might be helpful for learners, identify the benefits of high-variability input on learning and identify the different effects of high-variability input on learning by typical learners vs. individuals with language-learning disabilities.