This study investigated changes in middle school students' interest and affect during a moderately difficult reading task. The aim was to explore how changes in interest (topic and situational) and affect were related to students' reading fluency throughout the task and perceived difficulty. Interest and affect were recorded at four time points:…

Reducing problem complexity by isolating elements has been shown to be an effective instructional strategy. Novices, in particular, benefit from learning from worked examples that contain partially interacting elements rather than worked examples that provide full interacting elements. This study investigated whether the isolating-elements…

The current study investigated the mediating role of social achievement goals in the relation between classroom goal structures and academic engagement and social adjustment among 373 middle school students (52.8% female). Students' perceptions of classroom goal structures were measured in Fall; social achievement goals and academic and social…

The effectiveness of animations containing two novel forms of animation cueing that target relations between event units rather than individual entities was compared with that of animations containing conventional entity-based cueing or no cues. These relational event unit cues ("progressive path" and "local coordinated" cues) were specifically…

Plausibility is a central but under-examined topic in conceptual change research. Climate change is an important socio-scientific topic; however, many view human-induced climate change as implausible. When learning about climate change, students need to make plausibility judgments but they may not be sufficiently critical or reflective. The…

The educational advantages of inquiry learning environments that incorporate modelling facilities are often challenged by students' poor inquiry skills. This study examined two types of model progression as means to compensate for these skill deficiencies. Model order progression (MOP), the predicted optimal variant, gradually increases the…

Comparing common mathematical errors to correct examples may facilitate learning, even for students with limited prior domain knowledge. We examined whether studying incorrect and correct examples was more effective than studying two correct examples across prior knowledge levels. Fourth- and fifth-grade students (N = 74) learned about decimal…

Cognitive efficiency (CE) is generally defined as qualitative increases in knowledge gained in relation to the time and effort invested in knowledge acquisition. Across disciplines, limited consensus exists concerning the conceptual and measurement properties of CE partly because some researchers indiscriminately use the construct of CE to…

Using structural equation modeling with a population-based cohort of French-speaking children from Quebec (Canada), prospective associations were made between two previously established factors underlying student performance--classroom engagement and the teacher-student relations. Our results show developmental continuity in classroom engagement…

Can students be taught to better comprehend the diagrams in their textbooks? Can such teaching transfer to uninstructed diagrams in the same domain or even in a new domain? What methods work best for these goals? Building on previous research showing positive results compared to control groups in both laboratory studies and short-term…

The aim of the present study was to investigate how situational interest develops over time and how it is related to academic achievement in an active-learning classroom. Five measures of situational interest were administered at critical points in time to 69 polytechnic students during a one-day, problem-based learning session. Results revealed…

Personal best goals (PB goals) articulate a target performance standard that matches or exceeds one's previous best. This study examined the role of PB goals in academic and social functioning. Alongside academic and social outcome measures, PB goal items were administered to 249 high-school students at the beginning and end of their school year.…

Theory on achievement goals favours a trichotomous model encompassing learning goals, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. Performance-avoidance goals are associated with lower achievement compared to performance-approach and learning goals. The present study investigated the predictions of this model as regards achievement after…

This study examined the relationships among Taiwanese high school students' scientific epistemic beliefs, conceptions of learning science, and self-efficacy of learning science. The questionnaire responses gathered from 377 high school students in Taiwan were utilized to elicit such relationships. The analysis of the structural equation model…

This study investigated how metacognition appears as a socially shared phenomenon within collaborative mathematical word-problem solving processes of dyads of high-achieving pupils. Four dyads solved problems of different difficulty levels. The pupils were 10 years old. The problem-solving activities were videotaped and transcribed in terms of…