This study investigates how working memory (WM) capacity and L2 linguistic knowledge affect L2 literal and inferential reading comprehension, considering the presence or absence of background knowledge. Eighty upper-intermediate to advanced adult English learners participated, completing tasks to assess WM capacity, background knowledge, L2…

Students benefit from receiving and providing peer feedback, but the degree of participation limits the benefit. Further, students sometimes resist participation, providing few or only short comments. Prior researchers have examined the role of general attitudes toward peer feedback in limiting participation. However, little research has examined…

Past research on knowledge has differentiated between dimensions (e.g., amount, accuracy, specificity, coherence) of knowledge. This paper introduces a novel dimension of knowledge, the Motivational Utility of Knowledge (MUK), that is based on fundamental human needs (e.g., physical safety, affiliation, actualization, reproduction). Adults in the…

The adult participants in this study range in age from 20 to 50 years. They describe their remembered experiences of learning mathematics in both primary and secondary education. None of the participants achieved the qualifications in mathematics which would allow them access to higher education. They are now studying mathematics after many years…

Research universities are increasingly incorporating interdisciplinary education into their strategies. In this transition from monodisciplinary to interdisciplinary education, there is a need for insight into the optimal implementation of such activities. The current study investigates university lecturers' interpretations of interdisciplinary…

Combining the inherent strengths of school teaching and museum exhibitions on socio-scientific issues could be a complementary approach to prepare students in a holistic and reasonably time-effective way for major future challenges. However, at present it is not known how effective these exhibitions really are, nor to what extent topic interest…

This study examined "backward transfer," which we define as how students' ways of reasoning about previously encountered concepts are modified when learning about new concepts. We examined the backward transfer produced when students learned about quadratic functions. We were specifically interested in how backward transfer may vary for…

This paper attempts to address challenges identified by Michael Young and those arising from his writings on 'powerful knowledge' to gain a deeper insight into the relationship between everyday horizontal knowledge and disciplinary vertical knowledge as well as how we can approach it in a way that benefits pedagogy. The attempt includes the move…

Quantitative reasoning is a critical skill in biology and has been highlighted as a core competency by "Vision and Change." Despite its importance, students often struggle to apply mathematical skills in new contexts in biology, a process called transfer of knowledge. However, the supports and barriers that students perceive for this…

Cultures of teaching represent the habits, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs that educators share or embody as a professional body or group. To learn more about teaching cultures, specifically cultures of graduate teaching assistants (TAs), I interviewed 17 TAs at a large Canadian university. I adopted Dan Lortie's classic work on teaching…

Acceleration, compacting the curriculum, differentiation, and asynchronous development are just some of the many concepts that underpin the discipline of gifted education and its associated pedagogy. There is little discussion or indeed implementation of these strategies within the tertiary sector. What would tertiary education in Australia look…

The present study compared learning gains at both form recall and meaning recall levels across three learning conditions: viewing without note-taking, viewing with conventional note-taking, and viewing with guided note-taking. A total of 134 Chinese learners of English were assigned to three experimental groups and a no-treatment control group.…

Despite the growing awareness of the environmental crisis, few studies have examined how early childhood educators conceptualise the environment and the funds of knowledge they draw upon to describe these. Using 'funds of knowledge' as a theoretical lens, this study explores how early childhood educators in Malta describe the environment. Guided…

Stress is ubiquitous in life and creates a need for effective responses in any domain. In this exploratory study, our goal was to understand better how business students learn and use stress management techniques in the classroom context and how this learning applies to different domains. We used thematic coding and textual analysis of weekly…

Self-derivation through integration is the process of integrating novel facts and producing new knowledge never directly taught. Knowledge integration has been studied with the presentation of two novel facts. However, in educational settings, individuals are required to integrate new information with prior knowledge learned days, months, or years…