I consider three aspects of children's thinking about religious phenomena. It displays intriguing parallels with their thinking about scientific phenomena; it has an impact on their moral behavior; and it is likely to impact their religious experience. Children's gradual conceptual progress in the domain of religion resembles their conceptual…

Identifying the mental models held by students has been widely emphasized as being a pivotal aspect of effective science education. In fact, it allows us to understand students' conceptions, detect teaching-learning difficulties and tailor instruction accordingly. Hence, in this study, the plant nutrition mental models held by upper secondary…

Time is an important but complex area of learning for students in the primary years. This study sought to develop a tool which would provide a clear picture of students' understanding of what constitutes time and how time is related to clock and calendar use. Four major components of time, Awareness of time, Succession, Duration, and Measurement…

The concept of fractions given in learning is the concept of part of whole and part of unit. The development of student's concepts of fractions can be built through fraction schemes. A partitive fraction scheme is a scheme that estimates the size of the fraction in the form of non-units to the whole that is not partitioned. The concept of…

Research suggests that tasks that use technology as a reorganizer (technology is used to produce dynamic representations) are linked with the development of students' conceptual knowledge, yet many secondary mathematics textbooks in the USA predominantly include tasks that use technology as an amplifier (technology is used to produce static…

Due to the learning paradox, students cannot have real difficulty in understanding a mathematical concept that they have not yet understood. There is a gap between real difficulties, directly experienced by students, and illusionary ones, only observed by researchers. This paper aims to offer a critical reflection on our understanding of the term…

An important educational goal is enabling students to learn scientific concepts. The scientific concepts learned in class are developed within students' cognitive structures. Despite the successful application of Semantic Network Analysis (SNA) to study these cognitive structures, there has been limited examination of students' concept networks…

Despite the recognized link between scientific reasoning, mental sets, and conceptual change, the cognitive mechanisms underlying successful conceptual change remain unclear. To explore this, we developed computer-based reasoning programs with and without mental set support to examine their effects on conceptual change in tasks of varying…

A major challenge in the process of innovation is to generate quality products that are original as well as feasible, because these features are associated with contradictory cognitive thought processes. This study investigated whether opportunities to engage in an idea generation, selection, and subsequent refinement with a simultaneous focus on…

In an experimental study, we explored the relationships between team regulatory focus and temporal patterns of innovative activities as well as innovative performance. We manipulated regulatory focus in 44 student teams and assessed idea generation and implementation activities over time based on video data. External raters assessed innovative…

This study aims to describe metacognitive interventions for students who experience suspension of sense-making when solving integration problems based on the characteristics of students' thinking. This research applied a qualitative research approach and provided essay tests followed by task-based interviews to classify students who experience…

An ability to engage in system thinking is necessary to understand complex problems. While many pre-college students use system modeling tools, there is limited evidence of student reasoning about causal relationships that interact in diverging and converging chains, and how these affect system behavior. A chemistry unit on gas phenomena was…

This article explores the cognitive aspects of utopia in environmental and sustainability education. Utopia here is understood as the imaginary transformation of society, entailing a critique of society and its imaginary reconstruction aligned with the ideal of just and flourishing communities. To gain insight into the processes at play, I develop…

Chance favors the prepared mind, said Louis Pasteur. Sometimes, significant breakthroughs occur when we creatively integrate new information, leading to a creative insight or an Aha! moment, while at other times when we fail to use a clue, we remain stuck in our habitual thinking patterns. In this study, we hypothesized that the brain's transient…

Uncertainty tolerance (UT) describes how individuals perceive and respond to uncertainty. Quantitative UT scales developed with physicians have been widely used in the health professions literature; however, recent studies have raised questions about their validity when implemented among students. This study explored response process validity of…