The case of 'Yummy Yummy'

A replication of an intervention program

Abstract

The current experimental study replicates and expands on the Yummy Yummy intervention study focusing on the role of observation in learning-to-write (Rijlaarsdam et al., 2008, 2009) that included 210 grade-7 students in seven classes from seven schools who were randomly assigned to one of two intervention roles: “readers” (tasked with text selection and discussion) or “observers” (tasked with observing readers to distill criteria they employ in their discussion). Effects of role condition were assessed by comparing the revisions students made in their texts, and with a questionnaire designed to assess students’ perceived learning experiences, particularly the extent of their learning during the intervention program and their explanations for their assertions. The results were consistent with the original study: revised writing products showed that observers outperformed readers, particularly in the domain of rhetoric. Additionally, observers self-reported higher levels of procedural knowledge acquisition compared to readers, while readers self-reported higher levels of declarative knowledge acquisition. The Yummy Yummy – observational learning replicated intervention program resulted in higher quality writing and had a differential impact on students' perceived learning.