Teaching conceptions in higher education, or so-called academics' conceptions of teaching (ACTs), are essential in informing teaching behaviors and influencing students' learning. Consequently, several attempts have been made since the 1990s to understand what ACTs represent and how they can be developed towards student-centered teaching. However,…

Sketch inhibition is regularly alluded to by educators as a phenomenon within design higher education, and one having increasingly marked effects on industry - but has garnered little attention from academics. This paper provides a meta-analysis of the literature and evaluation of the anatomy and functions of sketching during design ideation…

In relation to teaching and learning approaches that improve student learning outcomes, threshold concepts have generated substantial interest in higher education. They have been described as "portals" that lead to a transformed way of understanding or thinking, enabling learners to progress, and have been enthusiastically adopted to…

This chapter presents the bottlenecks identified by seven faculty members from diverse disciplines and an inductive content analysis of their Decoding interviews. Representative quotations illustrate themes in the interviews and we consider the implications for both faculty development and pedagogical research.

Over the last number of years, opportunities to learn in higher education for people with intellectual disabilities have increased. Consequently, this subgroup of students is gradually becoming part of an increasingly diverse college community. Because learning varies across different individual cultures and systems of higher education, our…

The central goal of the present exploratory study was to investigate the nature of the content-related interactions in study groups independently organized by college organic chemistry students. We were particularly interested in the identification of the different factors that affected the emergence of opportunities for students to co-construct…

Describes students' difficulties in learning the meaning of capacitance in a charged body by considering that individuals construct mental representations in order to help their understanding of the way a physical system works under varied circumstances. Asserts that a critical study of the history and epistemology of science is likely to…

One of the processes supposed to take place during development toward medical expertise is knowledge encapsulation. In this process detailed biomedical concepts are gradually clustered together and reorganized under fewer, clinically relevant terms. A large-scale investigation was made of the process of biomedical knowledge application using…

Demonstrates how research-based knowledge about students' incompatible answers to different representations of the same task could be used in mathematics instruction. Describes the 'It's the Same Task' research-based activity which encourages students to reflect upon their own thinking about infinite quantities and avoid contradictions by using…

Analyses several examples of tacit influences exerted by mental models on the interpretation of various mathematical concepts in the domain of actual infinity. Specifically addresses the unconscious effect of the figural-pictorial models of statements related to the infinite sets of geometrical points related to the concepts of function and…

The hypothesis testing model is the most dominant model of adult concept learning. Based on task performance, subjects in the experiment were categorized into three levels of concept attainment. Results suggested the hypothesis testing model adequately reflected the performance of only the most successful subjects. (Author/DWH)

A treatment group of 20 aviation students used training manuals that presented functional flow diagrams before schematic diagrams. Comparison of data from 10 controls on a card-sort task showed that functional flow diagrams enhanced understanding of technical systems. (SK)

Studied how nonnatural entities are represented by examining concepts of God of 145 college students in three experiments. In story processing tasks, students often used an anthropomorphic God concept that was inconsistent with their stated theological beliefs. The tendency to anthropomorphize may be generalizable to other agents. (SLD)

Considers examples of aspects of the infinitely small and large as they unfolded in the history of calculus from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Presents didactic observations at relevant places in the historical account. (Author/MM)

Explores faulty models that students have for physiological processes. Undergraduate students (N=393) in three different research universities predicted the changes in heart rate, strength of cardiac contraction, breathing frequency, and depth of breathing under conditions that result in increased cardiac output. Contains 23 references. (DDR)