Framing design problems and solutions has been recognised in design studies as a central designerly activity. Some recent findings with expert designers relate framing practices to problem-solution co-evolution and analogy use, two further widely recognised design strategies. We wanted to understand if interaction design novices also use…

This article focuses on how the representational properties of manipulatives affect the strategies children employ in problem solving. Two studies examined the effect of physical materials on 4-7-year-old children's problem solving strategies in a numerical (i.e., additive composition) task. The first study showed how children not only identified…

Students in tertiary education are often faced with the prospect of writing an essay on a topic they know nothing about in advance. In distance learning institutions, essays are a common method of assessment in the UK, and specified course texts remain the main sources of information the students have. How do students use a source text to…

This paper examines some of the ways gifted students are said to be different from non-gifted students by comparing the responses of 475, 9-year-old "gifted" students with those of 230 average-attaining 13-year-old students on the same mathematical problem-solving questions. The questions were specifically written for mathematically…

339 children aged 6 and 7 at Oxford primary schools took part in a study of arithmetic. 204 of the children had been selected by their teachers as having mathematical difficulties and the other 135 children were unselected. They were assigned to an Addition Performance Level on the basis of a calculation pretest, and then given Dowker's (1998)…

Background: Teaching styles in physical education (PE) found prominence through Muska Mosston's teaching styles "Spectrum" model. Mosston's Spectrum has been remarkably successful and its logic currently underpins the conceptualisation of teaching styles in many PE practices in Western education systems, including those in the United…

This paper further develops an instructional method called here "process-object linking and embedding". The idea is to link the familiar mathematical processes to objects in a familiar situation, then re-embed the new link through mathematical symbols into their mathematical construction. It makes use of children's extra-mathematical,…

This study is part of a larger research agenda, which includes future doctoral study, aiming to investigate the psychological processes of thought experiments. How do thought-experimenters establish relations between their imaginary worlds and the physical one? How does a technique devoid of new sensory input result to new empirical knowledge? In…

Music educators are particularly keen to offer learning opportunities that enhance creativity. How this happens remains something of a mystery. Within an international context, this article reports on a study that used a cross-cultural perspective on creative thinking with a particular focus on examining the link between problem-solving and…

This paper presents a collection of studies that examine interactions in preschool and school settings around the time of school entry. The studies are loosely organized around five themes: (1) differences between intended and experienced curricula, and intended and experienced patterns of interaction; (2) contingent and responsive nature of…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends (InPACT) 2016, taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 of April to 2 of May, 2016. Psychology, nowadays, offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…