Using cluster-analysis in a sample of 65 Norwegian 10th graders, we identified subgroups characterized by relatively high levels of knowledge combined with relatively low beliefs in personal justification of knowledge claims, as well as subgroups characterized by the opposite pattern of knowledge and personal justification. Moreover, the high…

Two complementary studies, one in the laboratory and one in the field, compared the usage patterns and the effectiveness of interactive videos and illustrated textbooks when German secondary school students learned complex content. For this purpose, two videos affording different degrees of interactivity and a content-equivalent illustrated…

Informal learning is becoming a standard format in companies' training and development (T&D) activities. It requires a specific learning competence comprising cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational dimensions. In the present study, it was investigated whether learning-competence variables predict success in informal learning. Given the…

This study examined how constructivist and didactic instruction was related to students' cognitive, motivational, and achievement outcomes in English classrooms, using a sample of 3000 Grade 9 students from 108 classrooms in 39 secondary schools in Singapore. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed differential cross-level relations. After…

Some preliminary observations relating to problems of the semiotic mediation of reality through linguistic tools are presented and discussed in light of the experiences of 12- to 13-year-old Swedish students interpreting a table of postage rates. Learning to use such a tool is a genuinely social phenomenon. (SLD)

A research project using an instrument designed to allow teachers to investigate their students' ideas about learning found that the ideas of 193 English and Finnish adolescents about learning were varied, without clear understanding of how they learned. Finnish students seemed to depend more on their teachers than did English students. (SLD)

Fourteen high-intelligence and 13 low-intelligence first-year college students worked in a structured or unstructured simulation environment to learn correlational principles. Thinking-aloud protocols indicate that high-intelligence subjects exhibit a better working method than do low-intelligence subjects, and that working method is a strong…

One hundred thirty-seven students in 12th grade physics classes participated in a quasi-experimental study comparing the jigsaw classroom method of cooperative instruction with traditional direct instruction. While no differences were found between the two conditions for physics achievement gains, the results revealed differences in students'…

Emotions such as interest and anxiety are part of the learning process as well as cognition and motivation. In view of this, educational science should take emotional aspects of instruction into account. The "ECOLE"-approach ("Emotional and Cognitive Aspects of Learning") presented in this paper is a theoretically guided…

Results from an experiment with 28 experimental and 28 matched control college students taking a 13-week computer science course support the potential of modeling and coaching students in metacognitive strategies to enhance learning. The instructional method had significant long-term and short-term effects on cognitive and affective learning…