Impacts of after-action reviews on mathematical learning performance
Abstract
Reviewing the completed exercises was essential to mathematical learning, but students often jump to the next exercise after finishing the current one without reviewing. It is not clear how to effectively conduct this learning activity. On the other side, after-action reviews (AARs) have proved to be a good learning practice that has been widely used in military and unmilitary training for decades. It helps students learn through reviewing. This study applied AARs in mathematical learning to improve students’ learning effectiveness through reviewing their completed exercises. In addition, the study further investigated how the question types of AARs influence students’ cognitive engagement. Ninth-grade students (N = 125) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (AARs of general questions, AARs of specific questions, and no AARs). The results revealed that conducting AARs after solving mathematics problems could significantly improve learning performance (p <.05). Compared with AARs of specific questions, AARs of general questions could significantly improve students’ cognitive engagement (p <.001). The findings provide important implications for mathematical education and learning practice.
Publication Title
Learning and Motivation
Recommended Citation
Xu, W., Zhang, L., Hu, X., & Zhou, D. (2021). Impacts of after-action reviews on mathematical learning performance. Learning and Motivation, 76 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2021.101765
