Background: In STEM education, tasks are essential for organizing and designing teaching-learning processes, as they give concrete form to curricular goals and content standards. Tasks that build on each other and initiate a learning process are particularly effective. Tasks are often specified according to their function (confrontation,…

Objective: Research indicates that coping styles mediate self-control and health outcomes. Emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies (eg, getting advice or planning) are used to address stressors. In contrast, avoidance-focused strategies (eg, substance use) are used to escape distress and are associated with greater alcohol problems. The…

Emotion regulation is a crucial aspect of individual development across the lifespan, influencing personal and social well-being. The academic environment is a key context for emotion regulation, yet its relationship with academic achievement remains unclear. This study aimed to clarify the association between specific emotion regulation…

Children's responses to new, unfamiliar social interactions should be influenced by their cognitive appraisals and physiology, though little is known about how these constructs interrelate. To investigate these links, we examined whether children's appraisals of recalled events and resting parasympathetic physiology predicted social…

The purpose of this study is to provide reliable evidence of the observable correlates of the Aha! moment and what this means for moving from surface to deep thinking. The study analyses facial expressions and body language from video recordings of students solving problems, followed by interviews, focus groups, and surveys. The problem-solving…

This grounded theory study identified and described eight leadership phases of the school consolidation process from the perspective of receiving school principals. The study was conducted during the 2023-2024 academic year in a large suburban district that was undergoing wide-ranging consolidation of elementary schools due to declining…

Background/purpose: Executive functions are generally considered crucial for an individual's capacity to adapt. This also applies to the domain of professional competencies. However, relatively few scientific studies have specifically examined the role of executive functions in relation to teachers' professional competencies. Didactic competencies…

In the present study, we explored whether future teachers considered spatial skills to be built up slowly and incrementally (incremental view) or considered spatial skills to be an innate, static aptitude (entity view). We also examined whether these views were associated with personal spatial skills, confidence in spatial problem-solving, or…

Emotions play a crucial role in the learning process, yet there is a scarcity of studies examining emotion dynamics in problem-solving with fine-grained data and advanced tools. This study addresses this gap by investigating the emotional trajectories during self-regulated learning (SRL) phases (i.e., forethought, performance, and self-reflection)…

Open-ended learning environments (OELEs) support constructivist approaches to STEM learning. This promotes student engagement and facilitates a deeper understanding of STEM topics. Despite their benefits, OELEs can present significant challenges for novice learners. Recent studies have revealed the complex relationship between students' affective…

Problem posing is an indispensable constituent of mathematical thinking, which makes it a requisite ability for students of all grades. Therefore, pre- and in-service teachers should carry out problem posing activities of high quality, and having them pose non-routine problems may be a good way to make this happen. In this context, this study…

Although adolescence is characterized by increasing individuation, parental support represents an important resource especially in early adolescence. This multi-informant study examined the role of parental self-efficacy in providing emotional and instrumental support when early adolescents partially learned from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.…

Objective: To evaluate the hypothesis that social problem solving (SPS) moderates strong emotion reactivity (ER) to stressful events in predicting suicide ideation (SI). Participants: 200 college students: mean age = 20.33; 75% women; 58% white. Methods: Participants completed the following self-report inventories: Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation,…

ABSTRACT Childhood maltreatment increases the risk of peer victimization in middle school students, yet the specific link between them remains unclear. This study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify maltreatment subtypes and examined how coping strategies moderated their relationship with different types of peer victimization, comparing…

In this dissertation, I explored students' expressed emotions as they worked on a problem-solving lab contextualizing the local lead poisoning issue in the city in which they attended college. I identified students' expressed emotions and their reasoning for expressing those emotions. I also looked at the change in students' emotions as they…