A previous study found that task shifting and fluid intelligence, but not working memory capacity (WMC) and prior knowledge, influenced the worked example effect (Schwaighofer, Bühner, & Fischer, 2016). To increase confidence in these findings, we report a preregistered extended replication study of Schwaighofer et al.'s investigation.…

In a design-research project on problem-solving, theory-based and practice-oriented materials were developed with the goal of fostering systematical development of students' problem-solving competence in a targeted manner by learning heuristics. Special attention was given to working backward strategy, which has been shown difficult for students…

Solving reality-based tasks is an important goal in mathematics instruction and is anchored in education standards determined by mathematical modeling skills. These tasks demand a serious examination of the real-world as well as text comprehension to successfully solve them. Therefore, this study empirically reconstructed the comprehension process…

The need to develop clean-energy storage systems, harvesting technologies, and new functional materials are but a few of the many contemporary challenges in the domain of science today. To address these challenges, problem solving has become a key skill of the 21st century. It is generally documented, however, that experts and students differ in…

In this note, we report on an implementation of discovery-oriented problems in courses on Real Analysis and Differential Equations. We explain a type of task design that gives students the opportunity to conjecture, refute and prove. What is new is that the complexity in our problems is limited and thus the tasks can also be used in homework…

Problem-solving competence is an important requirement in back offices across different industries. Thus, the assessment of problem-solving competence has become an important issue in learning and instruction in vocational and professional contexts. We developed a computer-based low-stakes assessment of problem-solving competence in the domain of…

In the light of ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICT) it is essential for everyone to be digitally competent. This is particularly true for prospective engineers and teachers since their jobs play an important role in shaping our common future. We assessed engineering and science teacher students' (n=180) digital competences…

Recent approaches to statistics education situate the teaching and learning of statistics within cycles of statistical inquiry. Learners pose questions, plan, and collect, represent, analyse and interpret data. We focus on the first step -- posing statistical questions. Posing statistical questions is a critical step as questions inform the types…

Engaging historiography and interpreting secondary sources represent essential elements of historians' work that have been largely ignored in favor of primary source reading in high school history classrooms in the United States. To understand whether and how students apply their historical reasoning skills to secondary sources, we asked…

The understanding of graphs and extraction of relevant information from graphs plays a major role in physics education and is also important in several related fields. Recently, Susac "et al." [Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 14, 020109 (2018)] compared physics and psychology students' understanding of graphs in the contexts of physics and…

The coordination of multiple external representations is important for learning, but yet a difficult task for students, requiring instructional support. The subject in this study covers a typical relation in physics between abstract mathematical equations (definitions of divergence and curl) and a visual representation (vector field plot). To…

Despite the important role that metacognition plays in school mathematics, attention has only recently turned to primary grades. The aim of this exploratory qualitative study was to find out to what extent 6 second graders engage in metacognitive behaviors during mathematics problem-solving. The analysis was based on the adaptation of the…

Providing test questions after an initial study phase is a common instructional technique. In theory, questions that require higher-level (deep) processing should be more beneficial than those that require lower-level (shallow) processing. However, empirical evidence on the matter is inconsistent. To shed light on two potential reasons for these…

Pre-service physics teachers often do not recognise the relevance for their future career in their university content knowledge courses. A lower perceived relevance can, however, have a negative effect on their motivation and on their academic success. Several intervention studies have been undertaken with the goal to increase this perceived…

Universities face the challenge of constantly improving the quality of higher education and changing the learning behaviour of students, from passive reactive learning to active self-regulated learning. Learner-centred, constructively designed learning tasks offer a great opportunity here. This paper investigates to what extent the learning…