Learning to solve syllogisms by watching others’ learning Padraic Monaghan and Keith Stenning October 2, 1998 Introduction This experiment arose from the confluence of two interests, one in “vicarious” learning (learning by observing others learning) (see e.g. McKendree, Stenning, Mayes, Lee, & Cox, 1998), and the other in the learning of elementary logic (see e.g. Stenning, Cox, & Oberlander, 1995; Stenning & Yule, 1997; Monaghan & Stenning, 1998). The experiment involves teaching students a method of solving syllogisms using Euler’s Circles. The teaching session includes “vicarious” learning through video clips of students solving syllogisms with this method. The study addresses several questions: how do students respond to graphical methods of problem solving? what are the individual differences in students’ abilities to acquire and utilise a graphical method for problem solving? does “vicarious learning” aid acquisition and use of the graphical method? what are the effects of watching a fellow student struggling to use the method and a student using the method with ease? The motivation for using Euler’s Circles came from several directions. Syllogisms are complex reasoning problems that evince marked differences in solution strategy and the ease with which students answer them. Therefore, there is a great deal of variation in the way the problems are approached and responded to. Syllogisms can be solved using a graphical strategy – that of Euler’s Circles – and, again, students indicate variations in the ease with which they acquire and utilise this strategy (Monaghan & Stenning, 1998). Due to its being a graphical strategy, it is a demonstrable method. Students use external representations of the graphics in order to solve syllogisms, therefore seeing the method in operation as performed by another student is clear. Method Subjects The subjects were 32 undergraduate students from the University of Edinburgh. 30 of these were undertaking the experiment as part of a course in human communication, 2 students participated in order to fulfill criteria for a linguistics course. This research was supported by the ESRC Cognitive Engineering Programme, the EPSRC Multimedia and Network- ing Applications Programme, and by ESRC research studentship No. R00429634206. 1