The capacity to solve tasks that contain high concentrations of visual-spatial information, including graphs, maps and diagrams, is becoming increasingly important in educational contexts as well as everyday life. This research examined gender differences in the performance of students solving graphics tasks from the Graphical Languages in…

Chemistry students in Israel have two options for studying chemistry: basic or honors (advanced placement). For instruction in high school honors chemistry courses, we developed a module focusing on abstract topics in quantum mechanics: Chemistry--From the Nanoscale to Microelectronics. The module adopts a visual-conceptual approach, which…

This dissertation explores fifth and eighth grade students' interpretations of three kinds of mathematical representations: number lines, the Cartesian plane, and graphs of linear functions. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, I administered the paper-and-pencil Linear Representations Assessment (LRA) to examine students'…

This paper integrates technology, in the form of a physics simulation; science concepts, via image formation by lenses; and a mathematics apparatus, in the form of rational functions. All constituents merge into an instructional unit that can be embedded into a high school or undergraduate mathematics or physics course. The cognitive purpose of…

Patients with traumatic brain injury show clear impairments in behavioural flexibility and inhibition that often persist beyond the time of injury, affecting independent living and psychosocial functioning. Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that patients with traumatic brain injury typically show increased and more broadly…

The aim of this study is to scrutinize the characteristics of conceptual meaning making when students engage with virtual worlds in combination with a spreadsheet with the aim to develop graphs. We study how these tools and the representations they contain or enable students to construct serve to influence their understanding of energy resource…

This paper is based on a study which explored the conceptual understanding of Grade 11 mathematics learners of graphical functional relationships, in particular their understanding of the Cartesian plane, notation, symbols and graphical terminology. The National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Grades 10-12 in mathematics stipulates functional…

As is the case for any statistical model, a multidimensional latent growth model comes with certain requirements with respect to the data collection design. In order to measure growth, repeated measurements of the same set of individuals are required. Furthermore, the data collection design should be specified such that no individual is given the…

The primary focus of the present study was to investigate the effect participants' (N = 100) knowledge of a text translation may have on their perceived musical tension while listening to a piece of choral music sung in another language. When examining the graphs that show the group mean responses of the participants, control (without text…

This study is part of a project concerned with the analysis of how students work with two-variable functions. This is of fundamental importance given the role of multivariable functions in mathematics and its applications. The portion of the project we report here concentrates on investigating the relationship between students' notion of subsets…

What kinds of astronomical lab activities can high school and college astronomy students carry out easily in daytime? The most impressive is the determination of latitude and longitude from observations of the Sun. The "shooting of a noon sight" and its "reduction to a position" grew to become a daily practice at the start of the 19th century…

We adapted and piloted Collaborative Strategic Reading-High School, a reading comprehension intervention, with three high school students with autism spectrum disorder to investigate its effects on their reading comprehension. Using a nonconcurrent, multiple-baseline design, participants with autism spectrum disorder were paired with a…

In Years 9 and 10 of secondary schooling students are typically introduced to quadratic expressions and functions and related modelling, algebra, and graphing. This includes work on the expansion and factorisation of quadratic expressions (typically with integer values of coefficients), graphing quadratic functions, finding the roots of quadratic…

As anyone who has taught or taken a statistics course knows, statistical calculations can be tedious and error-prone, with the details of a calculation sometimes distracting students from understanding the larger concepts. Traditional statistics courses typically use scientific calculators, which can relieve some of the tedium and errors but…

Scholars have argued that imprecise data graphics, specifically those displaying decorative dimensionality of data, may lead to inaccurate interpretations. Empirical tests of decorative dimensionality have produced mixed results. The literature also suggests that the effects of decorative dimensionality may depend on the cognitive demand of a…