The overall purpose of this study was to investigate the role of personal relevance in conceptual change. First, we used an experimental design to investigate the role of augmented activation--which directly implicated teachers' personal prior beliefs about mathematics learning and instruction--and refutational text manipulations on short and…

In this exploratory study, we investigated the personal epistemologies of statisticians in academia with the aim of offering some insight into what might be an availing epistemology for learning statistics. Findings from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six academics in the UK currently researching within the field of statistics showed…

The aim of this study is to determine pre-service classroom teachers' beliefs and thoughts about the roles of teachers and students in the classroom before taking the Mathematics Teaching I course. With this purpose, the study employed the survey method, a descriptive research technique. The study sample included 75 pre-service teachers (55…

How do children come to understand that others have mental representations, e.g., of an object's location? Preschoolers go through two transitions on verbal false-belief tasks, in which they have to predict where an agent will search for an object that was moved in her absence. First, while three-and-a-half-year-olds usually fail at approach…

This study describes the development and implementation of an instructional design (ID) model to increase the efficiency of instructional technology (IT) courses, by adopting a constructivist perspective envisaging the simultaneous treatment of multiple barriers (technological beliefs, knowledge, skills) to engage student teachers as whole persons…

This survey-based study examined rural Eastern Long Island elementary school teachers' beliefs about literacy, and identified the degree to which those beliefs are traditional, eclectic, or constructivist in their approach. Data were gathered using Likert Surveys within three small, rural districts. Surveys were comprised of 30 statements (15…

This article examines constructivism, a paradigm in qualitative research that has been propagated by Egon Guba, Yvonna Lincoln, and Norman Denzin. A distinction is made between whether the basic presuppositions of constructivism are credible compared to those of a competing paradigm and whether constructivism's beliefs are internally consistent.…

This autoethnography is a constructed account of a co-exploration into the nature and effects of a longitudinal dyadic conversation process from a relational constructionist perspective. The conversations, between me as participant autoethnographer and a co-participant, aimed at maximising personal learning for both. Through co-created contexts of…

Learning Analytics is an emerging research field and design discipline that occupies the "middle space" between the learning sciences/educational research and the use of computational techniques to capture and analyze data (Suthers & Verbert, 2013). We propose that the literature examining the triadic relationships between…

Given that constructivist approaches to counseling and religious faith traditions have divergent views regarding the understanding and perception of reality, the question arises, "Can a counselor embrace both a constructivist counseling approach and a particular religious tradition?" Using a diversity within unity perspective, the author argues…

This paper presents a two-dimensional model for measuring individual teachers' progression in ICT integration and for guiding them toward higher integration levels. There are four levels in the pedagogy dimension: direct teaching, cognitively active learning, constructive learning, and social learning. These levels are defined based on four…

This article presents a case for adopting a constructivist approach in the teaching of culture to federal, business and civilian personnel. In support of this argument, the author: (1) outlines the history of culture teaching as it progresses from behaviorist through cognitive to constructivist orientations; (2) argues that a constructivist…

The "will, skill, tool" model is a well-established theoretical framework that elucidates the conditions under which teachers are most likely to employ information and communication technologies (ICT) in the classroom. Past studies have shown that these three factors explain a very high degree of variance in the frequency of classroom…

This study proposed a conceptual model of relationships among constructivist learning environment perception variables (Personal Relevance, Uncertainty, Critical Voice, Shared Control, and Student Negotiation), scientific epistemological belief variables (fixed and tentative), and learning approach. It was proposed that learning environment…

This was a qualitative case study that compared data across six district-level literacy coaches' epistemological and ontological beliefs about how to teach reading. All six coaches were working as a cohort of literacy coaches on the development and implementation of a secondary reading intervention program for seventh-grade struggling readers.…