A context-based approach to education aims to improve students' meaningful learning and uses authentic situations in which scientific concepts are applied. The use of contexts may contribute to the learning of abstract concepts such as algorithms. The selection of appropriate contexts, however, is challenging for teachers. It is therefore…

To assess whether movement artifacts reported in visual inspection time (IT) tasks were under metacognitive control, 29 young adults in Edinburgh (Scotland) were tested on a dual-task paradigm in which IT was conducted along with a concurrent task. Reports of movement artifacts are not usually examples of metacognitive processing. (SLD)

Reports on a study into the problem solving abilities of students in a Jamaican high school who were intentionally taught problem solving strategies during one-sixth of their mathematics instruction for one academic year. Results indicated no significant increases in their performance on a problem solving test. (TW)

Describes a study that explores the instructional influence of presenting pictures at the molecular level when introducing chemistry concepts and solving chemistry problems. Explores the effect of the pictures on students' conceptions and problem-solving abilities. Contains 59 references. (DDR)

Presents thinking-aloud protocols from secondary pupils solving arithmetic story and geometrical problems and analyzes their protocols by using interpretation models founded on a general problem-solving model. A word problem solving simulation is also used to further explicate processes pupils use to solve mathematical tasks. (Author/MBR)

Structural learning theory and the Rasch model measured learning gain, retention, and transfer in 1,037 students, grades 7-10. Students learned nine functional relationships with either spontaneous or synthetic algorithms. The Rasch model gave the better description of the data. The hypothesis that the synthetic method was superior was refuted.…