We investigated whether worked examples could be used to reduce cognitive load on mathematics learners who may have reduced available cognitive resources due to experiencing anxiety or excess stress. Across 2 days, 280 fifth-grade students learned from a difficult lesson on ratio, half of whom reviewed worked examples at key problem-solving…

The sentences in texts are far more complex and diverse than those that children commonly encounter in oral language. This raises interesting questions as to whether the understanding of some sentence types might be more important than others in children's reading comprehension. Accordingly, we examined the relation between children's reading…

This classroom experiment investigates the effects of adding representational pictures to multiple-choice and constructed-response test items to understand the role of the response format for the multimedia effect in testing. Participants were 575 fifth- and sixth-graders who answered 28 science test items--seven items in each of four experimental…

This study compared the effects of effortless selection of target plants using quick respond (QR) code technology to effortful manual search and selection of target plants on learning about plants in a mobile device supported learning environment. In addition, it was investigated whether the effectiveness of the 2 selection methods was…

Reading for learning frequently requires integrating text and picture information into coherent knowledge structures. This article presents an experimental study aimed at analyzing the strategies used by students for integrating text and picture information. Four combinations of texts and pictures (text-picture units) were selected from textbooks…

Successful and least successful fifth graders read and studied difficult or easily understood stories. For both groups, cued recall was higher on stories which made sense. Only the successful students were aware of having difficulty with the less-understandable stories, and allowed themselves more time to study them. (Author/GDC)

Perceptions of U.S. (n=870), Chinese (n=709), and Japanese (n=713) mothers about their children's problems with first and fifth grade mathematics were examined in two studies. Results suggest that U.S. mothers evaluated their children's skills less critically and had lower mathematics achievement standards than did Asians. (SLD)