Research

Photo: Marco Montalti
Designing for Higher Order Learning
Learning is key to human flourishing. For people to fulfill their potential and thrive, higher order learning skills such as creativity, problem-solving, and reasoning are vital. My research bridges cognitive and educational psychology to design, test, and translate effective interventions that empower people with the skills to learn deeply.
Learning from Deliberate Errors
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In the traditional Japanese art of kintsugi, broken ceramics are given a new lease of life by mending them with lacquer dusted with gold—instead of being concealed, the cracks on the damaged artifacts are illuminated with seams of gold and valued as part of the objects’ unique history.
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Indeed, errors are inevitable in life. Whereas they have traditionally been viewed as aversive events, my research has developed a Prevention–Permission–Promotion (3P) framework that considers how errors can be best positioned to enhance learning (Wong & Lim, 2019, Educational Psychologist). Based on this framework, I pioneered the counterintuitive approach of deliberate erring, in which people are guided to intentionally commit and correct errors in low-stakes contexts, even when they already know the correct solutions.
Across multiple studies, I have found that deliberate erring improves learning more than avoiding errors—a phenomenon I have termed the derring effect. My work has established the benefits of deliberate erring across diverse learning outcomes, including not only basic memory recall (Wong & Lim, 2022, JEP: General), but also higher order knowledge application (Wong & Lim, 2022, Journal of Educational Psychology), mathematical problem-solving (Yap & Wong, 2024, Journal of Educational Psychology), and far transfer across different knowledge domains (Wong, 2023, Educational Psychology Review). Overall, these findings offer new insights for promoting errors as part of the intentional design for greater learning success.​
Learning by Teaching Others
Although people can learn individually from their errors, learning is further catalyzed by harnessing the social nature of constructing knowledge. When people teach others, they learn better themselves. My research has shown that learning-by-teaching is a powerful technique to improve higher order outcomes such as creative research question generation, as compared to other robust techniques such as retrieval practice and concept-mapping (Wong, Lim, & Lim, 2023, Journal of Educational Psychology).
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Whereas learning-by-teaching has traditionally involved delivering video-recorded lectures, I have examined how this technique can be implemented more accessibly and efficiently to enable more people to apply and gain from it. For example, I have found that writing verbatim teaching scripts for an imagined audience can be just as effective as oral teaching (Lim, Wong, & Lim, 2021, Applied Cognitive Psychology), while producing durable learning benefits in the classroom (Lim, Wong, & Visessuvanapoom, in press, Journal of Experimental Education). Further, I have demonstrated how written teaching can be combined with deliberate erring via learning-by-misteaching to yield additional gains for argumentative reasoning (Wong, in press, Journal of Educational Psychology). Altogether, these findings reveal how potent techniques can be strategically integrated and translated to improve real-world learning.​


Diverse Inexpensive and Effective Techniques
Leveraging cognitive science principles, my early work tested a diverse range of simple and inexpensive techniques to enhance complex, higher order learning outcomes.
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For instance, in the domain of musical learning, I have found that engaging in mental imagery fosters young children's creativity when composing music (Wong & Lim, 2017, PLoS ONE).​ My work has also demonstrated that interleaving is an effective technique when learning music composers' styles (Wong, Low, Kang, & Lim, 2020, Journal of Research in Music Education) and melodic musical intervals (Wong, Chen, & Lim, 2021, Psychology of Music).
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In addition, my research has shown that retrieving information from memory can improve higher order outcomes such as analogical problem-solving in statistical hypothesis-testing (Wong, Ng, Tempel, & Lim, 2019, Journal of Experimental Education). When supplemented with a novel metacognitive monitoring intervention—judgments of higher order learning (JOL+), retrieval practice can also boost argumentative reasoning (Wong & Lim, 2019, JEP: Applied). To understand why this technique works, I have further examined how its benefits are driven by cognitive mechanisms such as reduced mind-wandering (Wong & Lim, 2022, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review).
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Taken together, this body of work reveals not only practical insights on how to design for effective higher order learning, but also theoretical insights on the cognitive processes that support human learning.