In the 21st century, the urgent educational demand for cultivating complex skills in vocational training and learning is met with the effectiveness of the four-component instructional design model. Despite its success, research has identified a notable gap in the address of formative assessment, particularly within computer-supported frameworks.…

This study investigates the differential impacts of various online language assessment models--specifically, the Nonlinear Dynamic Individual-Centered Language Assessment (NDICLA), diagnostic assessment, and formative assessment--on the cognitive load and learning outcomes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners within computer-assisted…

Children's development during early childhood affects their well-being and educational success, but there are few reliable assessment instruments available. The aim of the study was to develop, pilot and validate an e-assessment instrument for assessing five-year-old children's development in cognitive processes, learning, language and…

Taking a test improves memory for that tested information, a finding referred to as the testing effect. Multiple-choice tests tend to produce smaller testing effects than do cued-recall tests, and this result is largely attributed to the different processing that the two formats are assumed to induce. Specifically, it is generally assumed that the…

The divisibility of the reading has led many researchers to examine whether reading construct is a unitary skill that cannot be divided into separate sub-skills, or it is composed of underlying components. In these studies, however, participants have generally been located in a product-oriented testing environment where their actual reading…

Introduction: Under the influence of Vygotsky, dynamic assessment (DA) has recently crept into the realm of L2 testing to assess learners' cognitive modification through the concept of mediation and zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Ableeva, The Effects of Dynamic Assessment on L2 Listening Comprehension 2008; Lantolf, Sociocultural theory and…

A critical component of scientific reasoning is the consideration of alternative explanations. Recognizing that decades of cognitive psychology research have demonstrated that relative cognitive accessibility, or "what comes to mind," strongly affects how people reason in a given context, we articulate a simple "cognitive…

This study aimed to identify the four key dimensions of epistemic beliefs that concern the nature of knowledge and knowing and examine their relationship with cognitive constructs, study approaches, and academic performance among Hong Kong college students. A 14-item scale was developed in three studies with independent samples of Hong Kong…

Purposes: This study uses think-alouds and cognitive interviews to provide validity evidence for an online formative assessment--i-Ready Standards Mastery (iSM) mini-assessments--which involves a heavy use of innovative items. iSM mini-assessments are intended to help teachers determine student understanding of each of the on-grade-level Common…

Two approaches to the process of guided discovery learning are compared for their impacts on concept understanding. One, referred to as design, emphasizes invention and draws on the simulation literature. The other, referred to as case analysis, focuses on discovery and draws on the case-based reasoning literature. Following a lecture on four…

This study tested two cognitive models, learning styles and dual coding, which make contradictory predictions about how learners process and retain visual and auditory information. Learning styles-based instructional practices are common in educational environments despite a questionable research base, while the use of dual coding is less…

The present study makes the case that the individual constituents of internet self-efficacy--search self-efficacy, communication self-efficacy, organisation self-efficacy, differentiation self-efficacy, and reactive/generative self-efficacy--may be of differential importance in predicting internet anxiety within web-assisted learning environments.…

Counterfactual thinking refers to imaginative thoughts about what might have been ("if only" or "what if") which are intrinsically linked to self-conscious emotions (regret and guilt) and social judgements (blame). Research in adults suggests that the focus of these thoughts is influenced by order (temporal and causal). Little…

Does correctly answering a test question about a multiterm fact enhance memory for the entire fact? We explored that issue in 4 experiments. Subjects first studied Advanced Placement History or Biology facts. Half of those facts were then restudied, whereas the remainder were tested using "5 W" (i.e., "who, what, when, where",…

Earlier research has found that it is useful to distinguish situations in which students construct external representations on their own from situations in which they are expected to interpret already provided external representations. One type of representations that is particularly important for teaching mechanics is the free-body diagram. In…