Regarding future ecological challenges, it is highly relevant for students to understand the processes within ecosystems and the effects of external influences on their conservation. Since ecosystems are complex, difficulties in learning are often examined from a systems thinking perspective. However, challenges also arise in other areas,…

This article illustrates and differentiates the unique role cognitive interviews and think-aloud interviews play in developing and validating assessments. Specifically, we describe the use of (a) cognitive interviews to gather empirical evidence to support claims about the intended construct being measured and (b) think-aloud interviews to gather…

A key highlight of this study is generating evidence of children "making aware the unaware", making tacit knowledge explicit. The research explores the levels of awareness in thinking used by eight 7-8 year-old children when engaged in school-based genre writing tasks. The focus is on analysing children's awareness of their thought…

The purpose of this paper is to assess the validity of multiple-choice questions in measuring fourth grade students' ability to interpret graphs related to physical science topics such as motion and temperature. We administered a test including 6 multiple-choice questions to 28 fourth grade students. Students were asked to explain their thinking…

Previous research has identified various factors that contribute to readers' comprehension of expository texts, including strategy expertise, language proficiency, prior knowledge, and more recently, readers' beliefs about knowledge. This study addresses the need to understand the relative contributions of these predictors to readers'…

This study explored preservice elementary teachers' and their mentors' understanding of the essential features of inquiry-based teaching through the use of evidence-based reflection. The web-based video analysis tool (VAT) system was used to support preservice teachers' and mentors' evidence-based reflection during field…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the decisions three teachers made to integrate technology in technology-rich elementary classrooms. An additional purpose of this study was to understand how the teachers' beliefs about technology and their knowledge of content, pedagogy, technology, and learners influenced the decisions…

Internationally, efficacy studies of school-based child sexual abuse prevention programs display a series of methodological shortcomings. Few studies include adolescent participants, recording of disclosures has been inconsistent, and no studies to date have assessed presenter adherence to program protocols or summated the costs of program…

The present study explored how seventh graders develop their understanding of climate change issues. Particularly, I focused on identifying students' ways of reasoning in evaluating and generating arguments. I also investigated whether students reason differently about climate change issues depending on the relevance of the issues to their daily…

Introduction: Despite all the emphasis on metacognition, researchers currently use different techniques to assess metacognition. The purpose of this contribution is to help to clarify some of the paradigms on the evaluation of metacognition. In addition the paper reviews studies aiming to improve the learning process through metacognition. Method:…