This study examined the effect of gamification on visual programming and computational thinking skills among primary school students, aiming to investigate how gamified learning environments enhance cognitive skill development and conceptual integration compared to traditional teaching methods. A quasi-experimental design was employed, involving…

This article reconsiders Case's theory of central conceptual structures (CCS), examining the relation between working memory and the acquisition of quantitative CCS. The lead hypothesis is that the development of working memory capacity shapes the development of quantitative concepts (whole and rational numbers). Study I, with 779 children from…

The study sought to investigate conceptual change process. It is specifically aimed to probe children's initial ideas and how or to what way those ideas alter in the long run. A total of 18 children volunteered and participated in the study. Individual interviews were conducted. The children were asked to define the concept of evaporation, explain…

Our paper builds on the construct of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky in Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978) to analyze the relationship between students' answers and the help they receive as they construct them. We report on a secondary analysis of…

Many children fail to master fraction arithmetic even after years of instruction. A recent theory of fraction arithmetic (Braithwaite, Pyke, & Siegler, 2017) hypothesized that this poor learning of fraction arithmetic procedures reflects poor conceptual understanding of them. To test this hypothesis, we performed three experiments examining…

Many children fail to master fraction arithmetic even after years of instruction. A recent theory of fraction arithmetic (Braithwaite, Pyke, & Siegler, in press) hypothesized that this poor learning of fraction arithmetic procedures reflects poor conceptual understanding of them. To test this hypothesis, we performed three experiments…

Individuals in many cultures believe in omniscient (all-knowing) beings, but everyday representations of omniscience have rarely been studied. To understand the nature of such representations requires knowing how they develop. Two studies examined the breadth of knowledge (i.e., types of knowledge) and depth of knowledge (i.e., amount of knowledge…

Many studies propose that chess is a game requiring cognitive skills and has positive effects on mental development. In recent years, chess training has also been emphasised as important during the early childhood period. However, no studies have been done with six-year-old children. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not…

We investigated the relation between children's numerical-magnitude representations and their memory for numbers. Results of three experiments indicated that the more linear children's magnitude representations were, the more closely their memory of the numbers approximated the numbers presented. This relation was present for preschoolers and…

To date, a number of studies have demonstrated the existence of mismatches between children's "implicit" and "explicit" knowledge at certain points in development that become manifest by their gestures and gaze orientation in different problem solving contexts. Stimulated by this research, we used eye movement measurement to…

Class-inclusion in first grade children was studied by using part-whole comparisons of families of stimuli (e.g., dogs). Results indicated that it was easier to make part-whole comparisons for the family relation than for the class-inclusion relation. (ST)

The Piagetian concept of horizontality was studied in 195 fifth graders to determine the relationship between this concept and memory. (ST)

Non conserving first- and second-grade children were tested on conservation tasks. Eye movements were recorded during the response period for each task. Trained conservers showed more visual exploratory behavior and less perceptual centration than control subjects. (ST)

Investigated whether children will relinquish belief in Piagetian concepts upon presentation of disconfirming evidence. The conservation of weight concept extinguished more readily than transitivity of weight, and only for the latter was a developmental trend evident. (DP)