Integrated writing assessments are tasks that require students to construct an essay using evidence from source texts. Topic models are statistical models used to analyze text. This study analyzes two integrated writing tasks from students in grades 6 (N=1,250) and 8 (N=1,250) using topic models. Independent evaluations of the essays were also…

The quality of products from the causal mapping process and the effect of factors related to causal map quality are unlikely to be the same for students at different educational levels. However, there is a lack of studies that provide insights into causal maps constructed by primary school students to reveal appropriate strategies. This study…

This research was conducted to examine the effects of the socioscientific issue with the thinking wheel map (SI-TWM) approach on the curiosity towards STEM, the construct of Exploration and Acceptance. A teaching and learning (TL) module was developed to guide teachers in implementing the SI-TWM approach to enhance curiosity among year five…

This research was conducted to examine the effects of the socioscientific issue approach (SSI) with thinking wheel map (TM) on entrepreneurial science thinking (EST) and the constructs of Observation, New Ideas, Innovation, Creativity, and Value. A teaching and learning (TL) module was developed to guide teachers in implementing the infusion of…

This paper reports the results of a quasi-experimental study that evaluated the effectiveness of collaborative mind mapping in three Hong Kong primary schools. More than 200 grade 4 students, divided into three pedagogical groups, participated in a variety of science learning activities with the aid of a mind map and/or collaborative group work.…

The survey results show that students have low writing skills. One of the contributing factors is that students have difficulty developing ideas from writing, which causes the writing process to be slow. Apart from that, passive learning activities also have an impact on students' writing abilities. Based on this, the aim of this research is to…

The importance of programs that develop the thinking skills of students has been emphasized by many educational researchers. However, the majority of these studies have focused on developing these skills of gifted students and of students in public schools. Few have focused on developing and strengthening such skills in students with learning…

Scratch, a kind of visual programming software, has been widely used in instruction for primary school children. Scratch constructs a digital world for children to design, develop, and create coursework in which their creative thinking is fostered. Different instructional methods have been designed and implemented to stimulate children's creative…

The vocabulary deficit shown by English Learners (ELs) has become evident among many educators over decades of research (Becker, 1977; Biemiller, 2001; Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990; Hart & Riseley, 2003), and has shown that a student's limited vocabulary becomes a "major barrier to school success" (Graves, 2005, p. 18).…

Causal reasoning is important to children's cognition and academic development. However, there have been few empirical studies on the impact of visual cues and non-verbal scaffolding on children's reasoning in continuous causal processes. Hence, the present study aims to explore how causal reasoning in continuous processes is facilitated by visual…

This research was carried out to determine the effectiveness and functionality of the word association test (WAT), which is a formative assessment tool that is frequently emphasized on today's modern education systems. The study group consisted of 60 students in a public school in Kocaeli in the school year 2018-2019. Participants were identified…

How can we succeed in meeting the challenges of the future world in the best possible way? In order to support children in their development into optimistic, self-effective adults, it is necessary to find out how children perceive their world and how they combine these perceptions with their cognitive knowledge. This article examines the question…

This single-case study tested a peer tutoring model using a visualizing strategy (story mapping) to teach struggling students better text comprehension. Three teams each consisting of a tutor and a tutee attending a fourth-grade general education classroom participated in the experiment. A short series of observations was carried out before and…

This study examined the effectiveness of two instructional mind-mapping approaches to stimulate fifth and sixth graders' graphical summarization skills. Thirty-five fifth- and sixth-grade teachers and 644 students from 17 different elementary schools participated. A randomized quasi-experimental repeated-measures design was set up with two…

Background and purpose: Research in formative assessment often pays close attention to the strategies which can be used by teachers. However, less emphasis in the literature seems to have been paid to study the application of formative assessment designs in practice. In this paper, we argue that a formative assessment design that we call…