Introduction: In the proposed study, the authors focus on the effectiveness of the application of inquiry-based approach in Slovak schools and present the results of an original research study focused on the impact of inquiry-based teaching on students' knowledge acquisition. Methods: For the purposes of the research study, a pedagogical…

Background: Coding has become an integral part of STEM education. However, novice learners face difficulties in processing codes within embedded structures (also termed nested structures). This study aimed to investigate the cognitive mechanism underlying the processing of embedded coding structures based on hierarchical complexity theory, which…

Research often examines cognitive load as it relates to direct instruction, worked examples and problem-solving combined as an integrated whole. The present study examines these strategies in isolation to see their effect on cognitive load. Using learning materials covering the basics of critical thinking to undergraduate law students (n = 160) at…

Research suggests that explanatory pictures support learning, whereas pictures that distract processing resources from the main ideas of a text may impair learning and are considered as seductive illustrations. However, non-explanatory pictures that are related to the text and that do not tempt readers to focus illustrations more than the text's…

The study aimed to investigate cognitive and metacognitive strategies and products of cognitive and metacognitive processes that preservice science teachers engaged in while reading heat-temperature text after being exposed to no reading strategy instruction, explicit reading strategy instruction,and peer tutoring reading strategy instruction.…

Background: Invasion team sports such as soccer require teams and individual players to understand the game and problem solve. One aspect of problem solving that has recently been more prominent in team sport literature is the role of metacognition. Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to examine how high-level youth soccer players…

This developmental account of executive function (EF) argues that domain-general analogical processes build a functional hierarchy of skills, which vary on a continuum of abstraction, and become increasingly differentiated over time. The paper begins by showing how a functional hierarchy can capture important aspects of EF development, including…

Epistemic engagement among higher education learners often involves cognitive appraisal operations which generate emotional processes. This study aims to develop and validate a multidimensional "Emotional Presence Scale" (EPS) to measure learners' experience of emotion due to cognitive appraisal in epistemic processes. Based on the…

This study examined the relationship between an individual learner's background, social network position, and interaction within a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC). Prior research has largely focused on the effects of background and social network position on quantitative features of interaction. This research considered qualitative features…

Mathematics pre-service teachers (PSTs) need opportunities to learn best practices in teaching mathematics, e.g., productive struggle. Productive struggle happens when students work through challenging problems that are not straightforward. This paper describes mathematics PSTs' engagement with productive struggle in a mathematics methods course.…

This study aims to reveal how the embodied cognition of certain geometrical concepts of secondary-school students arises via gestures and what kinds of gestures they produce while engaging with different concepts. The study participants comprised four eleventh-grade students studying at a state high school in Turkey. The study focused on the…

This article is written in response to listening to teachers query the place of fun in learning. Students often express that learning should be fun but teachers are often unsure what they mean by this and whether fun is actually important to learning. We have drawn some relevant understandings and views together to promote further conversation and…

The aim of this article is to present a pedagogical approach for history education. This approach is called Meaningful History and it outlines the process by which upper-level secondary history students can cultivate historical consciousness. Based on the notion of learning as meaning making and historical consciousness as a disposition to engage…

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been shown to enhance divergent and convergent creative thinking. Yet, how stimulation impacts creative performance over time, and what cognitive mechanisms underlie any such enhancement, remain largely unanswered questions. In the present research,…

The study examines the associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and noncognitive development in first year college students, distinguishing between objective (or absolute) and subjective (or relative) measures of SES. The analyses draw from longitudinal data capturing college students (N = 2,488) at the start of the first year of college…