Collaboration enhances conceptual learning with multiple representations. However, learning with multiple representations also involves perceptual learning processes. These often-overlooked learning processes are the target of perceptual trainings, which expose students to short nonverbal tasks so that students can induce visual patterns across…

Our civilization recognizes that errors can be valuable learning opportunities, but for decades, they have widely been avoided or, at best, allowed to occur as serendipitous accidents. The present research tested whether greater learning success could paradoxically be achieved through making errors by intentional design, relative to traditional…

Fraction arithmetic facility is fundamental to learning more advanced math topics. However, attaining the ability to add and subtract fractions is hard for many students. The present longitudinal study examined students' growth on simple addition and subtraction word problems between fourth and sixth grades (N = 536). Latent class growth analyses…

The More A-More B intuitive rule has become a research hotspot in the field of mathematical education in recent years. The intuitive rule of More A-More B is often reflected in students' responses to comparison tasks. In such tasks, students are asked to compare 2 objects that differ in a certain salient quantity A (where A[subscript 1] >…

The present study tests whether presenting video modeling examples from the learner's (first-person) perspective promotes learning of an assembly task, compared to presenting video examples from a third-person perspective. Across 2 experiments conducted in different labs, university students viewed a video showing how to assemble an 8-component…

Retrieval practice is a powerful way to promote long-term retention and meaningful learning. However, students do not frequently practice retrieval on their own, and when they do, they have difficulty evaluating the correctness of their responses and making effective study choices. To address these problems, we have developed a guided retrieval…

Fourth-grade poor comprehenders were not affected by the disruptive effect of syntactic and semantic violations, while good comprehenders exhibited an increasing number of errors across semantic and syntactic/semantic violations. (RC)

Two studies are reported that examine intraindividual variability in performance on measures of fluid intelligence, varying either practice or testing time conditions. Substantial improvement in level of correct performance is obtained for both conditions; error patterns, however, differ for the two. (Author/GK)

This experiment attempted to discover under what circumstances, if any, children use whole words, syllables, letter clusters, or letters as units during reading. The results indicated that syllables and letter clusters are probably not processed as units for any type of word, but there was slight evidence that letters may function as units,…

Processing requirements in letter discrimination for beginning readers with reflective-impulsive and field-dependent--field-independent learning styles were investigated. Results were interpreted in terms of feature analyses employed in letter identification and discrimination. (BJG)

Preschool children copied peg locations with standardized comparison pegboards aligned horizontally and diagonally and with three levels of pegboard complexity. Error patterns varied with type of alignment and display complexity. Results failed to support Bryant's hypothesis that mirror image confusions are no more frequent than other in-line…

Results indicate that for the task of generating counterexamples to invalid syllogisms, a primary source of difficulty is the first step of forming the negation of the conclusion, especially if the conclusion is a "Some are not" statement. When this step is done for the subject, most of the errors disappear. (Author/BJG)

Objective rules of sequencing were applied to elementary level instructional material to determine their effect on time, errors made during instruction, and posttest errors. Results are discussed in terms of the application of the rules to various types of instructional material. (Author/BJG)

Spelling errors made by children on initial consonant clusters of words were studied in 5 experiments with 130 first graders and 20 kindergartners. Young spellers have frequent problems with initial consonant clusters. Results suggest that difficulties in phonemic awareness lead to corresponding spelling difficulties. (SLD)

This study assessed the influence of reading ability and difficulty of material on types of oral reading errors made by 42 second-grade children. Overall, types of errors changed as the material became more difficult. The interactions between reading ability and difficulty level were also significant. (Author/BS)