The storage of information in external tools (e.g., notebook, cellphone) has become increasingly common. Some researchers have defined this behavior as cognitive offloading, which is a type of learning strategy. Studies have indicated that as age increases, children become increasingly capable of calibrating their learning strategies according to…

During category learning, students struggle to create an optimal study order: They often study one category at a time (i.e., blocked practice) instead of alternating between different categories (i.e., interleaved practice). Several interventions to improve self-study of categorical learning have been proposed, but these interventions have only…

Research has suggested that the type and frequency of learning strategies employed by successful listeners is greater than their less successful counterparts. Based on evidence that metacognitive strategies (e.g. listening-for-gist; inferring meaning) are more effective than cognitive ones (e.g. word-for-word translation), this study sought to…

The ways in which adult learners study information influences their judgment-of-learning (JOL) accuracy (e.g., Koriat et al. "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General," determine whether developing learners' metacognitive monitoring is similarly influenced by different study techniques. In two experiments, we examined JOL accuracy in…

The emergence of strategic verbal rehearsal at around 7 years of age is widely considered a major milestone in descriptions of the development of short-term memory across childhood. Likewise, rehearsal is believed by many to be a crucial factor in explaining why memory improves with age. This apparent qualitative shift in mnemonic processes has…

The present study evaluated the ability of males with fragile X syndrome (FXS), nonsyndromic autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or typical development to learn new words by using as a cue to the intended referent an emotional reaction indicating a successful (excitement) or unsuccessful (disappointment) search for a novel object. Performance for all…

Asking students to imagine the spatial arrangement of the elements in a scientific text constitutes a learning strategy intended to foster deep processing of the instructional material. Two experiments investigated the effects of mental imagery prompts on learning from scientific text. Students read a computer-based text on the human respiratory…

Embedding active learning is a common mechanism for meeting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education reform goals. Researchers have identified student benefits from such strategies, yet these benefits may not be universal for all students. We sought to identify how students at a nontraditional university perceive…

Rehearsal strategies of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and demographically matched typically developed (TD) adults were strategically manipulated by cueing participants to either learn, or forget each list word prior to a recognition task. Participants were also asked to distinguish between autonoetic and noetic states of awareness…

The focus of this study was to investigate the effects of student-question generation with online prompts on student academic achievement, question-generation performance, learning satisfaction and learning anxiety. This study adopted a quasi-experimental research design. Two classes of eighth grade students (N = 64) from one middle school…

Many studies have explored the contribution of different factors from diverse theoretical perspectives to the explanation of academic performance. These factors have been identified as having important implications not only for the study of learning processes, but also as tools for improving curriculum designs, tutorial systems, and students'…

If you've upgraded to the second edition of the landmark book "Classroom Instruction That Works," you need this companion guide to help you use technology to support research-based instruction. The authors follow the revised Instructional Planning Guide that makes it easier for you to know when to emphasize each of the instructional strategies,…

Students learned about electrical circuits in an arcade-type game consisting of 10 levels. For example, in one level students saw two circuits consisting of various batteries and resistors connected in series or parallel, and had to indicate which one had a higher rate of moving current. On levels 1-9, all students received a correct tone and had…

The benefits of active learning are well documented; nonetheless, the implementation of active learning strategies can be challenging in large lecture environments. The project will examine the research supporting active learning, present the implementation of simple active learning techniques in large lecture classes, and provide evidence to test…

Sixty-one undergraduate students used a taxonomic instructional aid, a mnemonic aid, or their own methods to master the content of a passage describing a plant classification system and the distinguishing characteristics of the plant groups within that system. The demonstrated advantages of mnemonic strategies are discussed. (SLD)