The variability effect occurs when learners' exposure to highly variable tasks results in better learning. It was hypothesised that learners who studied high variability worked examples would obtain higher post-test scores compared to learners who studied low variability examples, and learners who self-generated problem solutions for the same high…

This paper demonstrates that the emphasis on students' socioeconomic status (SES) in research and policy circles in Australia is unwarranted. The bivariate relationships between SES and educational outcomes are only moderate and the effects of SES are quite small when taking into account cognitive ability or prior achievement. These two influences…

Algebra has been explicit in many school curriculum programs from the early years but there are competing views on what content and approaches are appropriate for different levels of schooling. This study investigated 12-13-year-old Australian students' algebraic thinking in a hybrid environment of functional and equation-based approaches to…

Nursing students have typically found the study of chemistry to be one of their major challenges in a nursing course. This mixed method study was designed to explore how prior experiences in chemistry might impact chemistry achievement during a health science unit. Nursing students (N = 101) studying chemistry as part of a health science unit were…

A sample of Australian secondary school students was used to explore the relationships among a set of standardised Year 7 numeracy and literacy tests, measures taken at Year 10 of mathematics attitude and schoolwork effort, and Mathematics and English scores in a state-wide Year 10 examination. Additionally, the predictive capacity of the numeracy…

This study investigated the extent to which learning readiness, prior-to-school experiences, and child and family characteristics influence children's literacy and numeracy achievement across the first year of primary school. A sample of 104 kindergarten children was recruited from 16 classrooms and followed from the beginning to the end of their…

Evidence from the research literature suggests that a variety of cognitive factors are responsible for chemistry achievement. This investigation examined the role that four cognitive factors, namely, prior knowledge, formal reasoning ability, memory capacity and field independence/dependence, play on achievement in chemistry as measured by tests…