This study examines to what extent students transferred their knowledge from a familiar aquatic ecosystem to an unfamiliar rainforest ecosystem after participating in a technology-rich inquiry curriculum. We coded students' drawings for components of important ecosystems concepts at pre- and posttest. Our analysis examined the extent to which each…

Besides viewing knowledge about the nature of science (NOS) as important for its own value with respect to scientific literacy, an adequate understanding of NOS is expected to improve science content learning by fostering the ability to interrelate scientific concepts and, thus, coherently acquire scientific content knowledge. However, there is a…

The transfer of learning has been the subject of much scientific inquiry in the social sciences. However, mathematics education research has given little attention to a subclass called backward transfer, which is when learning about new concepts influences learners' ways of reasoning about previously encountered concepts. This study examined when…

This study examined the effects of a research-based intervention, schema-based instruction (SBI), implemented by experienced- (taught SBI in previous study; Jitendra et al., 2015) and novice-teacher implementers (taught SBI for the first time with professional development) on the mathematics outcomes of seventh-grade students. SBI is a…

In argumentative discourse, there are two kinds of activity--dispute and deliberation--that depend on the argumentative task goal. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these tasks…

Although autonomy-supportive teaching has been linked with increased student performance, this contention has not yet been explored in an experimental study. This article presents a small, pre/post control group experimental study evaluating the effect of procedural and cognitive autonomy-supportive teaching on student learning and motivation…

Purpose: To be effective, evidence-based programs should be delivered as prescribed. This suggests that adaptations that deviate from intervention goals may limit a program's effectiveness. This study aims to examine the impact that number and quality of adaptations have on substance use outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: The authors examined…

The authors examined the role of an intervention designed to increase reading comprehension, reading self-efficacy beliefs, and engagement in social studies for middle school students of varying language backgrounds. Thirteen sixth- and seventh-grade teachers implemented the United States History for Engaged Reading (USHER) program with their…

Video podcasts allow students to control when, where, and what they learn, as well as the pace of learning. Considerable research has been conducted in higher education on video podcast use, but not in middle schools (grades six to eight). This study investigated the use of worked example video podcasts in mathematics classrooms with students 11…