Although any mainstream thought is subject to theoretical challenges, the challenges to the mainstream cognitive perspective on transfer have had an unfortunate divisive effect. This article takes a pragmatic view that transfer perspectives are simply designed objects (Plomp & Nieveen, 2007), which provide different information for different…

This research sought to add to a body of knowledge that is severely underrepresented in the scientific literature, reading comprehension in secondary students. Chapter 1 examines the current state of literacy in the nation's public schools and the consequences that arise if students leave high school with inadequate reading skills. It discusses…

Explores high school students' collaborative efforts in solving qualitative physics problems and investigates how and whether confronting students with varying views improves problem solving skills. (Contains 22 references.) (DDR)

This report describes a program for improving the transfer of the learning of different techniques used in computer applications. The targeted population consisted of sophomores and juniors in a suburban high school in a middle class community. The problem was documented through teacher surveys, student surveys, anecdotal records and behavioral…

Randomly selected high school students (n=13) who studied an ecology unit were interviewed, and narrative data analyzed for changes in knowledge schema. Data support the current theory that the amount and quality of prior knowledge substantially influence gains in new knowledge and are closely linked to a capacity to apply higher-order cognitive…

Presented is an analysis of a concept teaching technique that was developed according to a theoretical perspective which emphasizes the importance of a student's existing knowledge in influencing that person's subsequent learning. Significant differences between an experimental group which was exposed to this instructional strategy, and the…

Reported is the development, use, and evaluation of an instructional technique based upon: (1) the assessment of students' prior knowledge; and (2) a theoretical perspective advocated by Ausubel and others which emphasizes the importance of existing knowledge in influencing subsequent concept learning. The experimental group of 46 South African…

Various researchers have associated meaningful problem solving with methods guided directly by a conceptual knowledge base. By contast, a meaningless solving course, or sequence of operations, is essentially independent of the solver's conceptual understanding of the problem under consideration. This paper is the first to document a meaningless,…

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…

This study examined students' active roles in constructing knowledge when learning new information in the domain of biological evolution. A computer-based connectionist methodology was developed to provide a way to present students with new information while the experimenter provides probe statements congruent with or contradictory to the…

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…