Abstract
The doer effect is a learning science principle that proves students who engage with formative practice at the point of learning have higher learning gains than those who only read expository text or watch video. This principle has been demonstrated through both correlational and causal analysis. It is imperative that learning science approaches capable of increasing student learning gains be rigorously tested and replicated to confirm their validity before wide-scale use. Previously we replicated causal doer effect results using student data from courseware used at a major online university. In this paper, we will replicate both the correlational doer effect analysis as well as the causal analysis using both unit tests from the courseware and the course final exam. These multiple analyses of the doer effect on the same course data provide a unique comparison of this method and the impact of the doer effect on near and intermediate learning assessments. Findings of the correlational doer effect analyses confirmed doing was more significant to outcomes than reading, and further analysis determined these results could not be attributed to student characteristics. Results of the causal analysis verified doing was causal to learning on both the unit tests and final exam. The implications of these doer effect replication results and future research will be discussed.
