One of the challenges that commencing university students in computing degree programs face is the difficulty in engaging with the abstract and complicated theories in the computing discipline. In particular, it is hard for beginner computer architecture students to visualise the link between the theory of digital logic and the behaviour of the…

The present study investigates the effects that concreteness fading has on learning and transfer across three grade levels (4-6) in elementary school science education in comparison to learning with constantly concrete representations. 127 9- to 12-years-old elementary school students studied electric circuits in a computer-based simulation…

A medical school conducted a summer pre-matriculation program. The program provided basic sciences content comparable to first year medical student instruction along with clinical and other learning experiences. The study purpose was to examine self-confidence levels and reasoning skills of a single cohort of students. We examined the association…

Research on the graphical facilitation of probabilistic reasoning has been characterised by the effort expended to identify valid assessment tools. The authors developed an assessment instrument to compare reasoning performances when problems were presented in verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial formats. A sample of undergraduate psychology…

This study examined the status of critical thinking (CT) and reasoning skills in information communication and technology (ICT) for 190 college students in a higher education system. It analyzed how the students performed in CT, reasoning, and internet copyright and ethical issues. A CT assessment was designed to analyze the CT and reasoning…

Students' abstract reasoning abilities can differ from one society to another. Students' profiles play significant roles in these differences. The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between middle school students' cognitive development levels and their profiles (age, gender, and science achievement) using the Science Cognitive…

The way students, aged 12 through 16, ascribed meaning to coded words representing historical terms, based on contextual clues, was studied. Intelligence, grammatical ability, cultural background, and interest in history were also examined. (Author/MH)