Visual working memory (VWM) is limited in both the "capacity" of information it can retain and the "rate" at which it encodes that information. We examined the influence of stimulus complexity on these 2 limitations of VWM. Observers performed a change-detection task with English letters of various fonts or letters from…

Episodic memory relies on discriminating among similar elements of episodes. Mnemonic discrimination is relatively poor at age 4, and then improves markedly. We investigated whether motivation to encode items with fine-grain resolution would change this picture of development, using an engaging computer-administered memory task in which a bird ate…

Collaborative learning is a widely used instructional technique, but factors determining its effectiveness still are unclear. Cognitive load theory was used to examine the effects of prior collaborative experience and density of distribution of information amongst learners on short-term retention and delayed retention tests, as well as cognitive…

The influential metacognitive framework of Nelson and Narens (1990) distinguishes between "object-level" and "meta-level," with two metacognitive processes, monitoring and control, governing the interplay between them. Monitoring refers to the process by which the meta-level tracks the accuracy of object level-performance,…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an innovative educational approach that dates back to the 1960s. However, the twenty-first century goal of sustainable education poses a challenge to PBL, especially as it relates to isolation. Here we discuss the underlying issue of isolation in three respects. First, the information-processing model of PBL depends…

This study examined strategies used across two modalities of information presentation. Students were presented with two sources on endangered species, either as two texts or two videos. Then, participants were asked to annotate the two sources either using the track changes function in Microsoft Word, for the text condition, or using the VideoAnt,…

To identify expert poets' cognitive processes as they compose poetry, we asked 10 expert poets and 10 novice writers of poetry to think aloud as they composed a poem. Compared to the novices, expert poets revealed an associative playfulness and surrendering of consciousness, similar to that shown in research on general creativity in domains such…

Eye tracking is getting increasingly popular in mathematics education research. Studies predominantly rely on the so-called eye-mind hypothesis (EMH), which posits that what persons fixate on closely relates to what they process. Given that the EMH was developed in reading research, we see the risk that implicit assumptions are tacitly adopted in…

After targeted instruction designed to improve student conceptual understanding of physics, a significant fraction of students are not able to answer many questions in a consistent manner. Prior research suggests that even those students who demonstrate that they acquired the relevant knowledge and skills (i.e., possess the requisite…

Guessing translations of foreign words ("hodei?"), before viewing corrective feedback ("hodei-cloud"), leads to better subsequent memory for correct translations than studying intact pairs ("hodei-cloud"), even when guesses are always incorrect (Potts & Shanks, 2014), but the mechanism underlying this effect is…

Conventional opinion about using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) for examining sentence comprehension maintains that RSVP taxes working memory (WM), which probably affects sentence processing. However, most RSVP studies only infer the involvement of WM. Other cognitive resources, such as cognitive control or vocabulary may also impact…

When characterizing students' item-solving strategies, methods such as interviews and think-aloud protocols are often used. However, these measures provide limited information about sub-or preconscious signals and cognitive processes that also affect students' item-solving strategies and abilities. A growing number of researchers in chemical…

Cognitive load theory was introduced in the 1980s as an instructional design theory based on several uncontroversial aspects of human cognitive architecture. Our knowledge of many of the characteristics of working memory, long-term memory and the relations between them had been well-established for many decades prior to the introduction of the…

This article identifies and explores three major themes evident in the scholarship seeking to re-examine and re-think historical understandings of the mind/body debate in education. The first concerns the expansiveness and flexibility of beliefs about the relationship between body and mind. Though often rooted in scientific findings or religious…

Although the Education sector has pioneered the use of technology, the pace of technological change has outstripped the slower processes of theoretical development and critical reflection, so the field is highly fragmented and lacks a comprehensive evidence base to support future development. In this paper, we consider how the insights offered by…