In this study, we examine the effect of background knowledge and local cohesion on learning from texts. The study is based on construction-integration model. Participants were 176 undergraduate students who read a Computer Science text. Half of the participants read a text of maximum local cohesion and the other a text of minimum local cohesion.…

Students were involved in the curriculum design of a statistics course. They completed a pre-assessment of their confidence and skills using quantitative methods and statistics. Scores were aggregated, and anonymous data were shown on the first night of class. Using these data, the course was designed, demonstrating evidence-based instructional…

For schools to be successful in providing current and future students with the right support to rise to the level of expectations embodied by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS 2010), school librarians must lead the way to improving school environments using effective, theory-based design of problem-based instruction that includes acquisition…

The study investigated whether activation of inaccurate prior knowledge before study contributes to primary-school children's commission errors and overconfidence in these errors when learning new concepts. Findings indicate that inaccurate prior knowledge affects children's learning and calibration. The level of children's judgments of learning…

This article presents a review of 29 empirical studies to identify the main foci of research on student teachers' identity, the methodologies used and their major findings. The reviewed studies were found to investigate four broad factors: the contribution of: (1) reflective activities, (2) learning communities, (3) context and (4) (prior)…

The development of research skills and scientific reasoning underpins the mission of graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, yet our understanding of this process is mainly drawn from self-report and faculty survey data. In this study, we empirically investigate the pattern of research skill…

People learn from prior experiences. We first learn how to use a spoon and then know how to use a different size of spoon. We first learn how to sew and then learn how to embroider. Transferring knowledge from one situation to another related situation often increases the speed of learning. This observation is relevant to human learning, as well…

Adults are prone to treating percents, one representational format of rational numbers, as novel cases of natural number. This suggests that percent values are not differentiated from natural numbers; a conceptual shift from the natural numbers to the rational numbers has not yet occurred. This is most surprising, considering people are inundated…

This proposal reports the findings from interviews with construction science students about their visualization of problems in a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional task. The specific research questions focused on the individual characteristics that students identify as influencing their spatial ability to generate internal and external…

In spite of the trend toward online learning in higher education in Australia, few research examined university students' online learning attitude changes and the factors which could predict their attitude changes. The paper aimed to investigate 120 Australian university students' attitudes toward online learning in a blended course. The factors,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of representation sequences and spatial ability on students' scientific understandings about the mechanism of breathing in human beings. 130 seventh graders were assigned to two groups with different sequential combinations of static and dynamic representations: SD group (i.e., viewing…

Using Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" as an anchor text, the authors argue for applied theatre strategies as vivid and viable tools for exploring challenging texts and applying critical lenses in an embodied way. Readers are guided through a series of theatre-based, English-classroom accessible improvisational frameworks to help…

As an important subject in the curriculum, many students find chemistry concepts difficult to learn and understand. Chemical bonding especially is important in understanding the compositions of chemical compounds and related concepts and research has shown that students struggle with this concept. In this theoretical paper based on analysis of…

This article undertakes a comparison of competency-based training (CBT) systems in a number of countries with the purpose of drawing lessons to support Ghana and other countries in the process of CBT implementation. The study focuses on recognition of prior learning and involvement of industry since these features seem crucial in achieving…

This article gives an account of an action research project that I used to examine and improve my own teaching practices. In this project, I used insights from critical pedagogy to inform my transition from a transmission to a social reform teaching perspective. When I used the critical pedagogical concept of constructed consciousness and the…