The current study aimed at examining the utility of a word association test in revealing students' cognitive structure in a specific chemistry topic through a word association test. The participants were 153 6th graders in a western Turkish city. The results revealed that the word association test serves a useful purpose in exploring the students'…

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,…

What do we know about how well graduate teaching in economics addresses cognitive challenges to learning? In short, very little. There is a dearth of research that investigates how graduate student, program and professor characteristics, and choices impact graduate student learning and other outcomes. Some of the broader literature on graduate…

Determination of the relationship between individuals' cognitive styles and cognitive structure outcomes was the main aim of this study. Sixty-six participants were enrolled in the study and their cognitive styles were determined by using the Hidden Figure Test (for their field dependent/independent dimension of cognitive style) and the…

The aim of this study is to determine the pre-service teachers' perceptions of atom and atomic structure through a word association test. It is important to concretize the concepts having a significant influence on the learning of subjects. Through this concretization, students' understanding of the concepts and accordingly of the subjects is…

This study aimed to investigate the cognitive structures of prospective preschool teachers and to identify their misconceptions about the concepts of circle, disk and annulus. In the study, the Word Association Test was used as the data collection instrument. The study was conducted in the fall semester of the 2014-2015 academic year with the…

Conceptual change theories assume that knowledge structures grow during the learning process but also get reorganized. Yet, this reorganization process itself is hard to examine. By using concept maps, we examined the changes in students' knowledge structures and linked it to conceptual change theory. In a longitudinal study, thirty high-achieving…

The study aims to determine education faculty students' cognitive structures regarding professional concepts, and to reveal the views of the students and faculty members about conceptual teaching. The participants of the study, which was designed as a case study, were determined using the criterion sampling method. In the study, which was carried…

Purpose of this study is to determine cognitive structures, conceptual knowledge and misconceptions of the 8th grade students concerning concepts of citizenship through a word association test. In direction of this purpose, a word association test consisting of democracy, sovereignty, independency, freedom, right and responsibility concepts have…

The purpose of education is to actualise meaningful learning. Therefore, researching the issues on how students process information and how they configure it is important for meaningful learning. The issue of protein synthesis contains a number of abstract topics and concepts. Hence, it is important in biology teaching to be informed of students'…

Electromagnetic induction is an important, yet complex, physics topic that is a part of Croatian high school curriculum. Nine Croatian high school students of different abilities in physics were interviewed using six demonstration experiments from electromagnetism (three of them concerned the topic of electromagnetic induction). Students were…

It is necessary to focus on environmental education at every stage of education in order to raise the awareness of the students about the environment and make the information permanent. Before setting priorities for educational policy and taking precautions, necessary studies relating the determining the views of the students should be performed.…

In this study, the use of concept cartoons in a particle structure of matter unit was investigated using the flow map of 7th-grade students' academic achievement. The development of their cognitive structures and thoughts about concept cartoons was analyzed. 27 experimental and 27 control group students who were studying in the 7th grade…

Understanding students' cognitive structures in a specific knowledge domain helps to determine the ''what, how and why'' features of such knowledge, so that we can take these structures into consideration in teaching. The purpose of the present study was to identify students' cognitive structures about solution and dissolution concepts. The study…

The current study aims to determine science student teachers' cognitive structure on the concept of food chain. Qualitative research method was applied in this study. Fallacies detected in the pre-service teachers' conceptual structures are believed to result in students' developing misconceptions in their future classes and will adversely affect…