The present study investigates whether Chinese high-school students are self-regulated learners. A social-cognitive model that distinguishes environmental, motivational, and cognitive components of this active approach to learning is described. This provides an appropriate framework for investigating this complex issue with eighth and tenth…

This paper tested the deep-level reasoning questions effect in the domains of computer literacy between eighth and tenth graders and Newtonian physics for ninth and eleventh graders. This effect claims that learning is facilitated when the materials are organized around questions that invite deep-reasoning. The literature indicates that vicarious…

The purpose of this present ethnographic case study is to explore the initial and developing beliefs, understandings, and experiences of prospective language teachers as they engage in the process of learning about cooperative learning (CL) and in putting it into practice in a TESOL graduate program in the U.S. Data collection includes multiple…

This research examined the nature of classroom decision making among three elementary teachers (the first in her 8th year, the second in her 3rd year, and the third in her 1st year). We were interested in understanding how teachers experience the complexity of classroom decision making and how they manage the cognitive load while teaching. The…

As a consequence of international educational studies like TIMSS and PISA, quality of instruction has become a central topic in the discussion between educators, researchers, and policymakers. Teacher competencies are preconditions for instructional quality. This study focuses on the impact of perceived teacher competencies on student well-being…

Based on the hypothesis that learning preferences tend to vary over cultures, this study compared and contrasted the learning approaches and learning styles between Chinese and American pre-service teachers in an attempt to know more about the learning/teaching landscapes in these two countries as "teachers teach the way they learned"…

This study discusses findings that replicate and extend the original work of Burns and Vollmeyer (2002), which showed that performance in problem-solving tasks was more accurate when people were engaged in a non-specific goal than in a specific goal. The main innovation here was to examine the goal specificity effect under both observation-based…

Due to the growing interest of school leaders in implementing learning communities as a way to build capacity for and sustain change, a better understanding of how the concepts of professional learning communities (PLCs) and communities of practice (CoPs) are related will aid educators in their quest to implement these concepts. This paper…

Individuals diagnosed with autism suffer from numerous social, affective and linguistic impairments. It has also been suggested that they have a global imitation deficit. That hypothesis, however, is compromised by the fact that individuals with autism suffer from various motor impairments. Here we describe an experiment on cognitive imitation, a…

Presents an accumulation model of learning in which incorrect response tendencies remain constant and correct response tendencies increase with practice. This model contrasts with the traditional replacement model in which correct response tendencies replace incorrect ones. The two models are compared in their ability to describe and predict…

Describes an experiment which sought to determine whether errors in shorthand notes affect the transcript. (JS)

An extensive research literature in education and psychology demonstrates positive effects of perspective-taking on various forms of learning. Until recently, perspective-taking has been limited to the mental simulation of how someone with different beliefs, knowledge, physical location, etc., perceives an object or event. Over the last decade…

Students benefit from collaborative learning activities, but they do not automatically reach desired learning outcomes when working together (Fischer, Kollar, Mandl, & Haake, 2007; King, 2007). Learners need instructional support to increase the quality of collaborative processes and individual learning outcomes. The core challenge is to find…

D. Klahr and M. Nigam (2004) make a case for the superiority of direct instruction over discovery learning in students' mastery of the control-of-variables strategy central to the scientific method. In the present work, we examine acquisition of this strategy among students of the same age as those studied by Klahr and Nigam, as well as follow…

The study investigated the dynamic relation between contingency learning and heart rate with risk and non-risk babies 5- to 10-months-old. Four groups were compared in a two contingency treatments (contingent, yoked) x two risk status design. Concurrent heart rate was monitored during three phases of a contingency learning task (baseline,…