The overall purpose of this study was to investigate the role of personal relevance in conceptual change. First, we used an experimental design to investigate the role of augmented activation--which directly implicated teachers' personal prior beliefs about mathematics learning and instruction--and refutational text manipulations on short and…

This study examines the moderating effects of a situational factor (i.e., text type) and an individual factor (i.e., subject-matter knowledge) on the relation between depth of processing and performance. One-hundred and fifty-one undergraduates completed measures of subject-matter knowledge, read either an expository or persuasive text about the…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether conceptual change predicted emotional and attitudinal change while learning about genetically modified foods (GMFs). Participants were 322 college students; half read a refutation text designed to shift conceptual knowledge, emotions, and attitudes, while the other half served as a control group.…

The authors build on literature related to the development of epistemic cognition, research on historical thinking, and studies of individuals' epistemic beliefs. They designed this study to explore, develop, and test a measure of epistemic cognition in history. They administered the Beliefs about Learning and Teaching History Questionnaire to…

The hypothesis testing model is the most dominant model of adult concept learning. Based on task performance, subjects in the experiment were categorized into three levels of concept attainment. Results suggested the hypothesis testing model adequately reflected the performance of only the most successful subjects. (Author/DWH)

Effects of prior knowledge and elaborate processing on retention of connected discourse were studied. Using the mean scores of the control group from each condition, derived scores were calculated for experimental groups. Results indicate prior knowledge and elaborative processing operate to diminish retroactive interference generated by reading a…

The effect of the location, in picture or text, of spatial, contextual, and operational information on comprehension was evaluated. Results showed that textual presentation of spatial information produced fewer errors, pictorial presentation reduced performance times, and pictorial presentation of contextual information reduced assembly times and…

Used the structural equation model approach to test a model hypothesizing the influence of parental involvement on students' academic aptitudes, self-concept, and causal attributions, as well as the influence of these variables on academic achievement. Results for 261 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years suggest that cognitive-affective variables are…

The latent composition of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory for High School (LASSI-HS) was studied through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of results from 367 ninth-grade students. Evidence supports a three-factor model. Interrelationships among the constructs are examined, and use of the instrument is discussed. (SLD)