Whereas some evidence exists that math anxiety may interfere with math performance from the very beginning of primary school, no study to date has attempted to investigate whether math anxiety may also interfere with early math learning (i.e., the encoding of new math knowledge) and not only with recalling already mastered contents in test…

A primary objective of development is to build a knowledge base. To accumulate knowledge over time and experiences, learners must engage in productive processes, going beyond what is explicitly given to generate new knowledge. Though important to accumulating knowledge, these processes are also easily disrupted. Individuals often depend on surface…

The visual working memory forms the basis for cognitive processes in learning, and it is therefore of interest to gain greater insight into gender and age differences in visual working memory among pupils. In this study, we wanted to see if there are differences between children in first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth grade in Norwegian schools…

We examined the role of executive attention, which encompasses the common aspects of executive function and executive working memory, in children's acquisition of two aspects of mathematical skill: (a) knowledge of the number system (e.g., place value) and of arithmetic procedures (e.g., multi-digit addition) and (b) arithmetic fluency (i.e.,…

Math achievement is not a unidimensional construct but includes different skills that require different cognitive abilities. The focus of this study was to examine associations between a number of cognitive abilities and three domains of math skills (knowing, applying and problem solving) simultaneously in a multivariate framework. Participants…

The present experiment investigated the effect of three different presentation modes in children's vocabulary learning with a self-guided multimedia programmes. Participants were 135 third and fourth grade children who read a short English language story presented by a computer programme. For 12 key (previously unknown) words in the story,…

Two conflicting hypotheses were investigated in this study. The first is based on an interference theory of forgetting and assumes that forgetting is largely a function of proactive interference, i.e., a result of interference by previously learned material. The second is based on the improvement of memory due to basic mechanisms that may operate…

Research generally indicates that imagery facilitates children's learning on basic memory tasks, such as paired-associate learning. The role of imagery in prose recall is less well defined, however. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the construction of mental images on eight year old's ability to recall progressively…

Curriculum-Based Assessment for Instructional Design (CBA-ID) provides data used to ensure an appropriately challenging learning task. One aspect of appropriate challenge measured by CBA-ID, called the acquisition rate (AR), involves the amount of new information a student could acquire and retain during initial learning. Previous research…

This study investigates whether color and background information in motion visuals have different effects on memory and comprehension of students in various grade levels. A three-by-three factorial pretest-posttest design was used, comparing levels of visual complexity and grade levels. The instructional content was a 12-minute computer animation…

Examined kindergartners' and third graders' recall to test the effects of four learning strategies applied to items involving three conceptual relations--taxonomic, contextual, and unrelated. Found that (using a constructivist framework for interpretation) learner activity and causal processing improved memory when memory was not supported by…

A LEARNING MODEL TO IDENTIFY FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DIFFICULTY OF A PROBLEM ITEM WAS SUPPORTED EMPIRICALLY, AND INDICATED THAT THE NUMBER OF STEPS REQUIRED TO SOLVE A PROBLEM WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT VARIABLE IN PREDICTING BOTH ERROR PROBABILITY AND RESPONSE LATENCY. THE MODEL, IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH DIFFERENTIAL PREDICTIONS OF DIFFICULTY IN…