Two disparate research programs have addressed the challenge of instructional multimedia design. One, based on cognitive load theory, has focused on ways of reducing unnecessary cognitive load during instruction to free up resources for learning. The other, based on constructivism, has centered on interactive multimedia, allowing students to build…

Presents four examples of students engaged in self-directed building projects. Uses the enactivist ideas of enaction, coemergence, mutual specification, and adequate conduct to describe and interpret the four cases. Describes the ways in which personally significant meanings and personal competency emerge within the context of self-directed…

The main purpose of this study was to explore the effects of long-term constructivist-oriented science instruction on elementary school students' process of constructing cognitive structures. Furthermore, such effects on different science achievers were also investigated. The subjects of this study were 69 fifth graders in Taiwan, while they were…

Contemporary assessment practices in science education have undergone significant changes in recent decades. The basis for these changes and the resulting new assessment practices are the subject of this two-part paper. Part 1 considers the basis of assessment that, more than 25 years ago, was driven by the assumptions of decomposability and…

Examined Australian year-10 students (n=110) for the effects of an instructional sequence in physics on their subsequent physics achievement and their perceived value of instruction aimed at conceptual change in year 11. An appendix outlines the year-10 instruction. (Contains 24 references.) (MDH)