This study investigated relations between the distribution of practice problems in textbooks and students' learning of decimal arithmetic. In Study 1, we analyzed the distributions of decimal arithmetic practice problems that appeared in 3 leading math textbook series in the United States. Similar imbalances in the relative frequencies of decimal…

The More A-More B intuitive rule has become a research hotspot in the field of mathematical education in recent years. The intuitive rule of More A-More B is often reflected in students' responses to comparison tasks. In such tasks, students are asked to compare 2 objects that differ in a certain salient quantity A (where A[subscript 1] >…

A previous study found that task shifting and fluid intelligence, but not working memory capacity (WMC) and prior knowledge, influenced the worked example effect (Schwaighofer, Bühner, & Fischer, 2016). To increase confidence in these findings, we report a preregistered extended replication study of Schwaighofer et al.'s investigation.…

Recent findings show that after studying a text, teaching the learned content on video to a fictitious peer student improves learning more than restudying the content. This benefit may be in part due to increased arousal associated with the teaching activity. The present experiment investigated whether teaching on video is also effective for…

Introducing new concepts to learners in an order of increasing complexity appears to be beneficial for learning, but typically introduction of concepts does not always adhere to this principle. We examined whether introducing new algebra concepts in a contrasted manner or in an order of increasing complexity instead of a different more typical…

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…

Making connections among multiple visual representations is key to students' learning. This article considers two learning processes involved in connection making: explicit sense making of connections and implicit perceptual induction of connections. Instructional interventions support these processes via different problem types: sense-making…

Both accurate monitoring and adequate control are crucial for effective self-regulation when learning from problem-solving tasks. Prior research has shown that self-regulated learning is especially harmful for low prior knowledge students, given their difficulties with accurate monitoring and control decisions. Although many studies have indicated…

The ability to learn in a self-regulated way is important for adolescents' academic achievements. Monitoring one's own learning is a prerequisite skill for successful self-regulated learning. However, accurate monitoring has been found to be difficult for adolescents, especially for learning problem-solving tasks such as can be found in math and…

Worked examples and collaborative learning have both been shown to facilitate learning. However, the testing of both strategies almost exclusively has been conducted independently of each other. The main aim of the current study was to examine interactions between these 2 strategies. Two experiments (N = 182 and N = 122) were conducted with…

Children in the elementary grades are expected to solve equations to demonstrate prealgebraic proficiency. Prealgebraic differences may emerge based equation type (i.e., standard vs. nonstandard), the operation shown or required for solution (i.e., addition or subtraction), and the position of the unknown. Prealgebraic differences may also be…

Worked examples have proven to be effective for knowledge acquisition compared with problem solving, particularly when prior knowledge is low (e.g., Kalyuga, 2007). However, in addition to prior knowledge, executive functions and fluid intelligence might be potential moderators of the effectiveness of worked examples. The present study examines…

The worked example effect indicates that examples providing full guidance on how to solve a problem result in better test performance than a problem-solving condition with no guidance. The generation effect occurs when learners generating responses demonstrate better test performance than learners in a presentation condition that provides an…

Computer-based assessment can provide new insights into behavioral processes of task completion that cannot be uncovered by paper-based instruments. Time presents a major characteristic of the task completion process. Psychologically, time on task has 2 different interpretations, suggesting opposing associations with task outcome: Spending more…

Solving mathematics story problems requires text comprehension skills. However, previous studies have found few connections between traditional measures of text readability and performance on story problems. We hypothesized that recently developed measures of readability and topic incidence measured by text-mining tools may illuminate associations…