Many research studies have clearly demonstrated the importance of cognitive structures as the building blocks of meaningful learning and retention of instructional materials. Identifying the learners' cognitive structures will help instructors to organize materials, identify knowledge gaps, and relate new materials to existing slots or anchors…

A considerable amount of research has been undertaken to provide insights into the valid assessment of team performance. However, in many settings, manual and therefore labor-intensive assessment instruments for team performance have limitations. Therefore, automated assessment instruments enable more flexible and detailed insights into the…

Cognitive scientists have studied internal cognitive structures, processes, and systems for decades in order to understand how they function in human learning. Nevertheless, questions concerning the diagnosis of changes in these cognitive structures while solving inductive reasoning tasks are still being scrutinized. This paper reports findings…

This study investigates the effect of "preactional self-regulation" on the quality of problem solving. The experimental study was realized in a problem-based self-regulated learning environment. Data of 78 participants on externalized mental models, re-representing the problem solutions, were collected. A computer-based analysis tool was…

Cognitive scientists have studied internal cognitive structures, processes, and systems for decades in order to understand how they function in human learning. In order to solve challenging tasks in problem situations, learners not only have to perform cognitive activities, e.g., activating existing cognitive structures or organizing new…

Mental models are basic cognitive constructs that are central for understanding phenomena of the world and predicting future events. Our comparison of two analysis approaches, SMD and QFCA, for measuring externalized mental models reveals different levels of abstraction and different perspectives. The advantages of the SMD include possibilities…

This research contributes to answer the question whether learning/cognitive styles of students serve as a justified starting point for creating target-group appropriate instruction. The study was realized in a self-regulated problem-based learning environment. Data of 56 participants on their individual learning styles, their acquired problem…

Our research aims to identify domain-specific similarities and differences of externalized cognitive structures. Cognitive structure, also known as knowledge structure or structural knowledge, is conceived as the manner in which an individual organizes the relationships of concepts in memory. By diagnosing these structures precisely, even…