This study tested competing theories about the effectiveness of different instructional sequences for learners with different levels of prior knowledge. Across two classroom experiments, undergraduates learned about noncovalent interactions in biochemistry by either receiving explicit instruction before problem-solving (I-PS group) or engaging in…

Based on the largest multi-institutional observational study of undergraduate courses in the United States, this article describes exemplar teaching practices in engineering courses as an interdisciplinary science field. The College Educational Quality (CEQ) research project studied 587 courses in nine different U.S. colleges and universities.…

Analogy is a powerful tool for fostering conceptual understanding and transfer in STEM and other fields. Well-constructed analogical comparisons focus attention on the causal-relational structure of STEM concepts, and provide a powerful capability to draw inferences based on a well-understood source domain that can be applied to a novel target…

Pregraduate students often have low success expectations toward their thermodynamics courses, which are often considered too abstract and remarkably difficult to understand. For this reason, they may not even try to reach any level of comprehension while settling for reproducing mathematical calculations and memorizing definitions to pass the…

This study explored the effects of prior knowledge and cueing on the learning (retention, transfer, and matching) and mental effort of learners who studied an instructional animation with accompanying narration about photosynthesis. A 4 × 2 between-subjects factorial design with four levels of cueing (no cueing, label cueing, picture cueing, and…

In this study, we investigated whether playing an escape room game after explicit instruction (instruction-first group, N = 20) is more effective to learn about copyright and media law than playing the game before explicit instruction (problem-solving-first group, N = 21). This is an important question as escape room games are complex,…

Preservice teachers face the challenge of integrating multiple types of knowledge, such as pedagogical-psychological knowledge and subject-specific pedagogical knowledge. We investigated whether prior instruction emphasizing the importance of knowledge integration (relevance instruction) supports preservice teachers in using both knowledge types…

This study investigated the effectiveness of using a sequence of worked examples as part of the feedback cycle. Worked examples were either presented as full worked examples or partial worked examples (single-step and completion formats). In two experiments, grade 8 students completed a learning phase on a mathematics topic, which was immediately…

Educators are recognizing the potential power of immersive virtual reality (IVR) to allow learners to experience previously intangible firsthand phenomena, such as atoms and molecules. In this study, an IVR simulation of a complex gene regulation system was co-designed with an undergraduate microbiology course instructor. The course, with 234…

College biology courses commonly use diagrams to convey information. These visual representations are embedded in course materials with the expectation that students can comprehend and learn from them. Educational research, however, suggests that many students have difficulty understanding diagrams and the conventions (e.g., labels, arrows) they…

The authors describe a research-based conceptual framework of how students learn that can guide the design, implementation, and troubleshooting of teaching practice. The framework consists of nine interacting cognitive challenges that teachers need to address to enhance student learning. These challenges include student mental mindset,…

Every student needs feedback to understand a scientific concept deeply. However, with a large number of students in each class, individual feedback is a challenge for teachers in Indonesia. Although there have been many studies conducted to maximize the giving of personal feedback, studies conducted by ensuring the consistency of a student's…

This experiment examined learning differences between students who read instructional examples that varied in the order that information was presented. In an online lesson about advice giving, 275 students were randomly assigned to a learning condition where the order of instructional information moved either from (a) concrete examples to abstract…

Although trigonometry is an important section in secondary school mathematics curricula, many teachers find it challenging to teach as a result of insufficient pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Therefore, the aim of this article was to report on how PCK on trigonometry manifests itself in teachers' practice. This exploratory case study was…

The relevant studies using a cross sectional view of speech organs supplemented with visuospatial cues and verbal text to explore EFL learners' learning effectiveness and behavior through mobile devices when learning English phonetics are scarce. This study was attempted to investigate whether the presence of visuospatial cues can benefit EFL…