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摘要

This paper by Grierson et al. integrates the specificity of practise perspective with challenge point accounts of learning to show how reducing the difficulty of practise can improve the generalisability of skills acquired by novices. The authors present a learning experiment in which the retention and transfer performances of novices who acquired laparoscopic skills using a gaze-up endoscopic display were compared against those of novices who had practised on a gaze-down arrangement. The comparison reveals that the gaze-down arrangement (i.e. the simplified practise context) benefited learners. The data point to the importance that the manipulation of task complexity may have for optimising training programmes.