An important trend in Dutch Vocational Education and Training (VET) to ensure the curriculum continuity of sequential educational programmes is the design of continuing pathways encompassing more than one qualification level. These continuing pathways are characterised by different design formats and differences in learning environment…

This article focuses on the question: which aspects of a learning environment, aimed at fostering career learning, correspond with the development of career competencies among university students in the Netherlands? A questionnaire-based study was carried out among 4820 students and 371 career counsellors in 11 universities. Four career…

Background: The match between students' perceptions of a learning environment and their preferences about its design influences students' learning behaviour and by consequence the effectiveness of education. Therefore, the students' perspective deserves a more prominent place in the educational design process. Having an adequate picture of the…

Case-based learning formats, in which relevant case information is provided just in time, require teachers to combine their scaffolding role with an information-providing one. The objective of this study is to establish how this combination of roles affects teacher behavior and that, in turn, mediates students' reasoning and problem solving. Data…

In this article we report on the effects of a digital intervention on the development of algebraic expertise of 17-18 year old students in the Netherlands. The question to be answered was whether the intervention would be effective and what factors influenced the outcome. With notions of formative assessment and symbol sense as guiding theoretical…

This study examined what worldviews are present among Dutch students and teachers and how the students cope with scientific knowledge acquired in the biology classroom. Furthermore, we investigated what learning and teaching strategies teachers adopt when they teach about evolution and worldviews. For this survey, 10 schools for higher general…

Two hundred sixty-seven 10- to 14-year-old Dutch children with dyslexia were randomly assigned to one of two samples that received a treatment for reading and spelling difficulties. The treatment was computer-based and focused on learning to recognise and use the phonological and morphological structure of Dutch words. The inferential algorithmic…

Ninety-five secondary students were given textbook material in which two sequence variations (web and linear) were used in relation to the information processing strategies (serialist or holistic) demonstrated by the students. Users of the web-structured sequence scored higher on concept retention. (Author/JJD)

Characterizes typical training programs on "learning to think," outlines past research, and lists criteria for an aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) study of the relationship between tasks, training methods, and student attributes. Details are given of two computerized experiments examining the different effects of algorithmic and…

A study of 228 undergraduate psychology students examined the effectiveness of a prototype of "heatlab," a laboratory simulation written in PCE-PROLOG, intended for remedying misconceptions of the concepts "heat" and "temperature." The effect of varying the amount of structure on students' understanding and the…

Examined effects of conceptually based instruction on development of students' procedural flexibility. Students in primary schools in the Netherlands participated in one of two instruction programs: the Realistic Program Design (RPD) or the Gradual Program Design (GPD). In both programs, conceptual understanding preceded procedural skill. However,…

A prescriptive theory for learning which delivers prescriptions for designing prototypes of instructional materials with different knowledge structures, the Elaboration Theory of Instruction (ETI) is based on important principles and theories of learning and instruction. This paper reports three experiments which tested ETI. The first experiment…

Two studies were conducted to determine how students perform psychomotor tasks and how teacher behavior influences performance. Study 1, conducted with about 100 technical students in a metal working class in a technical school in The Netherlands, showed that a process-based heuristic approach, stimulating students to perform complex psychomotor…

Research was performed in lower grade technical schools in the Netherlands to study complex psychomotor tasks requiring integration of several task-dependent skills. In two studies, students were observed performing metal work. They were assigned to instructional conditions of high, intermediate or low structure. Students in the high-structure…