Students in tertiary education are often faced with the prospect of writing an essay on a topic they know nothing about in advance. In distance learning institutions, essays are a common method of assessment in the UK, and specified course texts remain the main sources of information the students have. How do students use a source text to…

We adopted Brown's (1987) conceptualisation of metacognition to examine how student teachers can be taught metacognitive control while solving mathematical problems. In addition, tasks given to these student teachers were in-built with opportunities for them to be aware of the need for metacognition. We describe the use of the Practical Worksheet…

In order to achieve the present study's goal--to understand better the phenomenon of mathematical giftedness--we performed a multidimensional examination of the mental processing in students who exhibited mathematical expertise (EM) at the secondary school level. The study included participants from the three groups: students who excelled in…

Students with mathematics learning disabilities (MLD) have a weak understanding of fraction concepts and skills, which are foundations of algebra. Such students might benefit from computer-assisted instruction that utilizes evidence-based instructional components (cognitive strategies, feedback, virtual manipulatives). As a pilot study using a…

This study is part of ongoing research in undergraduate mathematics education. The study was guided by the belief that understanding the mental constructions the pre-service teachers make when learning matrix algebra concepts leads to improved instructional methods. In this preliminary study the data was collected from 85 pre-service teachers…

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is marked by specific deficits in processing numerical and mathematical information despite normal intelligence (IQ) and reading ability. We examined how brain circuits used by young children with DD to solve simple addition and subtraction problems differ from those used by typically developing (TD) children who…

We examined the use of balance and inverse methods in equation solving. The main difference between the balance and inverse methods lies in the operational line (e.g. +2 on both sides vs -2 becomes +2). Differential element interactivity favours the inverse method because the interaction between elements occurs on both sides of the equation for…

The present study aims to explore the behavioral patterns of the social knowledge construction process and the online searching behaviors in a collaborative problem solving learning activity for high school students, and further compares the different behavioral patterns of the high- and low-performing teams. A total of 78 high school students…

This study describes the development and structure of a coding scheme for analysing solutions to well-structured problems in terms of cognitive processes and problem-solving deficiencies for first-year engineering students. A task analysis approach was used to assess students' problem solutions using the hierarchical structure from a…

Symbolic play is a powerful vehicle for supporting emotional development and communication. It embraces all developmental capacities. This article describes how symbols are formed and how emotional themes are symbolized whereby children reveal their understanding of the world, their feelings and relationships, and how they see themselves in the…

The state of mathematical thinking is considered to have an effect on the formation of anxiety regarding teaching mathematics. It is hypothesized that with the formation of mathematical thinking, the anxiety in teachers regarding teaching mathematics will be reduced. Since mathematical thinking is a skill acquired starting from the early years of…

Previous research has indicated the disconnect between example-based research focusing on worked examples (WEs) and that focusing on modeling examples. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the effect of four different types of examples from the two separate lines of research, including standard WEs, erroneous WEs, expert (masterly)…

This paper is part two of the article entitled, "Dynamic Neuroscientific Systemology: Using Tri-Squared Meta-Analysis and Innovative Instructional Design to Develop a Novel Distance Education Model for the Systemic Creation of Engaging Online Learning Environments" published in the July-September 2015 issue of i-manager's "Journal…

This article illustrates the importance of one's initial thoughts in problem solving through an entertaining example.

Little to no information exists explaining the nature of conceptual gaps in understanding fractions for students with learning disabilities (LD); such information is vital to practitioners seeking to develop instruction or interventions. Many researchers argue such knowledge can be revealed through student's problem-solving strategies. Despite…