Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to one's existing ideas. Despite being two distinct processes, modeling is often described as sensemaking of the…

Understanding molecular processes and coordinating the various activities across levels of organization in biological systems is a complicated task, yet many curricular guidelines indicate that undergraduate students should master it. Employing mechanistic reasoning can facilitate describing and investigating biological phenomena. Biofilms are an…

Research has suggested that the type of feedback learners receive can impact on whether learners understand the feedback, the extent to which they engage with it, and whether they incorporate it in their revised drafts. However, to date, only a small number of studies have investigated learner engagement with corrective feedback provided by…

In classroom learning, students need mathematical cognitive flexibility to be able to solve mathematical problems with the various ideas they express. To solve the problems, they must be able to grasp the problem, see it from various points of view, and should not be rigid thinking with one solving method. In fact, the students still lack the…

This case study describes how our research team conducted the qualitative think-aloud approach (or cognitive pretesting) to obtaining cognitive validity evidence for a biology inference-making and reasoning measure for undergraduate students. The main goal of our work was to gather high-quality student think-aloud data of reasoning while they were…

The purpose of this study was to investigate bridging inferences and learning when students with low topic knowledge read multiple complementary biology texts. Using a think-aloud protocol, we assessed students' (n = 74) cognitive processes while they read one text about principles of natural selection and three texts about examples of natural…

This case study looks at the use of focus groups as a reflective pedagogical tool in a collaborative project at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The study involved the DanceDraw project, a collaboration between choreographers and computer scientists investigating the intersection of dance and technology. Eight dance and technology…

This article addresses well-known and difficult problems involving reading comprehension and compliance in college courses, using a lower-level philosophy course as a case study. It draws upon both general and discipline-specific research in three promising areas for reading instruction: metacognition, modeling via "think-alouds," and…

A growing body of scholarly work indicates that student performance on physics problems stems from many factors, including relevant conceptual understanding. However, in contexts in which significant conceptual difficulties have been documented via research, it can be difficult to pinpoint and isolate such factors because students' written and…

This paper describes the results of a comparative study into the approaches used by science undergraduates when solving open-ended problems. This study adopted a pseudo-grounded theory framework to analyse six case studies, one from each of the science disciplines studied. The study involved 70 participants from 5 institutions solving open-ended…

Research on gender and writing strategies in English as a foreign language (EFL) is scarce. This study investigates whether Moroccan male and female undergraduates use similar or different writing strategies when composing essays in the narrative and expository genres. Using think-aloud as a main research tool, a questionnaire, and retrospective…

This study reports the findings of a qualitative case study that examined how elements of design and organization were conceptualized and enacted in two graduate level online courses, and, how these conceptualizations and enactments evolved. Data was collected through interviews and "think-alouds" with the course instructors and through…

Instruction promoting reasoning and proof should be a part of K-12 mathematics teaching. Preservice teachers (PSTs) need mathematics content instruction that helps them construct valid justifications for mathematical notions and develop positive perceptions of proof. This case study describes instruction with proof-related tasks and manipulatives…

Due to the potential of the Internet and blended learning environment, students, especially L2 learners, are often required to read references available online. A study was conducted to identify the perceptions of L2 learners comprising TESL undergraduates towards TESL-related hypermedia reading materials and the factors contributing to their…

This study focuses on the investigation of the effects of computer simulation and animation (CSA) on students' cognitive processes in an undergraduate engineering course. The revised Bloom's taxonomy, which consists of six categories in the cognitive process domain, was employed in this study. Five of the six categories were investigated,…