Ideation methods and outcomes have been evaluated in a variety of ways. Our study extends existing work through a qualitative analysis of idea characteristics based on the ideation method used. Beginning engineering students completed two short ideation sessions with a single design problem while following Individual Brainstorming and then Design…

To solve an unfamiliar mathematics problem, students of the subject must know more than the appropriate prerequisite content knowledge. They must also know how best to strategically apply their knowledge, how to monitor and gauge the effectiveness of their work, and how to respond (both cognitively and emotionally) to unanticipated results.…

Purpose: Both monolingual and bilingual children use learning constraints and heuristics to acquire new words from their environment. Overall, fast mapping abilities seem to be similar in both populations, but monolinguals rely more than bilinguals on the mutual exclusivity strategy. Our study probes the robustness of these results in a large…

Many studies have used fraction magnitude comparison tasks to assess people's abilities to quickly assess fraction magnitudes. However, since there are multiple ways to compare fractions, it is not clear whether people actually reason about the holistic magnitudes of the fractions in this task and whether they use multiple strategies in a flexible…

This study focuses on computer-based formative assessment for supporting problem solving and reasoning in mathematics. To be able to assist students who find themselves in difficulties, the software suggested descriptions - diagnoses - of the encountered difficulty the students could choose from. Thereafter, the software provided metacognitive and…

Background: Research on causal reasoning often uses group-level data analyses that downplay individual differences and simple reasoning problems that are unrepresentative of everyday reasoning. In three empirical studies, we used an individual differences approach to investigate the cognitive processes people used in fault diagnosis, which is a…

Extant research has demonstrated that problem-posing and problem-solving mutually affect one another. However, the exact nature and extent of this relationship requires a detailed elaboration. This is especially true when adidactical problem-posing arises within a problem-solving context. In this study, we analyze the scripting journey used by two…

Readers confronted with unfamiliar and controversial scientific debates tend to rely on simple heuristics such as the perceived plausibility to focus their cognitive resources on specific information during comprehension. In the present experiment, we tested the assumption that plausibility judgments as an integral part of comprehension are used…

Understanding chemical models can be challenging for many university students studying chemistry. This study analysed students' understanding of molecular structures using the Lewis structure as a model, and examined what hinders their understanding. We conducted pre- and post-tests to analyse students' conceptions and changes in them. The…

Dual-process theories may be invoked to explain how physicians interact with, interpret, and draw inferences from clinical information. Stanovich and West's model articulates two kinds of thinking--intuitive-based System 1 and analytical-based System 2--which have been under-investigated with physicians in training. This qualitative study explored…

In a design-research project on problem-solving, theory-based and practice-oriented materials were developed with the goal of fostering systematical development of students' problem-solving competence in a targeted manner by learning heuristics. Special attention was given to working backward strategy, which has been shown difficult for students…

Spatial visualization--the ability to mentally imagine and manipulate objects--has frequently been measured using the Paper Folding Test (PFT). In this task, participants view diagrams of a paper being folded and a hole being punched. They then identify the resulting punch pattern. Although task instructions promote mentally unfolding the paper,…

This study describes the problem solving behaviour of bilingual (German - Turkish) primary school students, their approaches and preferences while solving the word problems. Four different types of mathematical word problems (combinations, movement, subtraction and addiction) were given successively to four pupils (one girl and three boys) and…

The periodic table is recognized as one of the most powerful tools in science. While it is included in virtually all high school and undergraduate general chemistry curricula, it remains a mystery to many chemistry students who find it impossible to decode. Students are often able to predict periodic trends concerning atomic radius, ionization…

Self-assessment and task-selection skills are crucial in self-regulated learning situations in which students can choose their own tasks. Prior research suggested that training with video modeling examples, in which another person (the model) demonstrates and explains the cyclical process of problem-solving task performance, self-assessment, and…