Advances in neuro-technology provide new insights into how individual students learn in educational contexts. However, applying it poses challenges for teachers in natural settings. This paper presents an example of the use and applicability of eye-tracking technology in Higher Education. We worked with a sample of 20 students from three…

Chemistry courses remain a challenge for many undergraduate students. In particular, first-semester organic chemistry has been labeled as a gatekeeper with high attrition rates, especially among students of color. Our study examines a key factor related to conceptual understanding in science and predictive of course outcomes-knowledge structures.…

We synthesize ideas from the foregoing articles in this special issue and from the broader literature on transfer to explore several themes. In many ordinary life circumstances, transfer proceeds easily, but formal learning often shows much less transfer than educators would like, making failure to transfer a focus of investigation. Transfer, like…

This article presents a grounded theory of "integration of learning" among traditional aged college students, which is characterized by the demonstrated ability to link various skills and knowledge learned in a variety of contexts. The author analyzed 194 interviews with students at liberal arts colleges to investigate empirically the ways…

After more than 100 years of interest and study, knowledge transfer remains among the most challenging, contentious, and important issues for both psychology and education. In this article, we review and discuss many of the more important ideas and findings from the existing research and attempt to bridge this body of work with the exciting new…

The superiority of learner-paced over system-paced instructions was demonstrated in multiple experiments. In these experiments, the system-paced presentations were highly speeded, causing cognitive overload, while the learner-paced instructions allowed adjustments of the presentational flow to the learner's needs by pacing facilities, mostly…

This study examined the role of learners' perceptions in a learner-controlled computer-based learning environment. Computer-based learning environments that offer learner control (LC) to the learners are assumed to enhance motivation and learning outcomes. Recently, the focus of LC research has shifted from measuring the direct effect of LC on…

This article investigates whether different formats of visualizing information result in different mental models constructed in learning from pictures, whether the different mental models lead to different patterns of performance in subsequently presented tasks, and how these visualization effects can be modified by further external…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of visual representations and time-compressed instruction on learning and learners' perceptions of cognitive load. Time-compressed instruction refers to instruction that has been increased in speed without sacrificing quality. It was anticipated that learners would be able to gain a conceptual…

Research findings concerning the relationship of personal knowledge and human cognitive processes are reviewed. Ways in which the impact of prior knowledge typically is not obvious to the teacher, and ways in which prior knowledge can disrupt the learning processes, are examined. Implications for education are discussed. (Author/MSE)

Discourse processing involves an interaction of text based processes and prior knowledge. It was shown that college students varied in their relative employment of knowledge-based processes, and that individuals tended to be more "text bound" when they were more "stimulus bound" according to an embedded figures test.…

Effects of prior knowledge and elaborate processing on retention of connected discourse were studied. Using the mean scores of the control group from each condition, derived scores were calculated for experimental groups. Results indicate prior knowledge and elaborative processing operate to diminish retroactive interference generated by reading a…

Describes a study of the background knowledge of college students from remedial English, regular composition, and English-as-a-second-language classrooms, indicating that remedial students often do not have the background information network necessary to cope with materials. (HTH)

The emergence of what is increasingly becoming known as the knowledge age implies that higher education should prepare students to be, primarily, knowledge workers. This proposition triggered a small scale study in which structured interviews were carried out with 25 second-year undergraduates registered for a psychology module on motivational…

A study examined the extent to which common knowledge structures and the presence of common performance components are important factors in reasoning. The eye fixations of 37 college students were recorded as they solved four types of complex inductive reasoning tasks: (1) verbal analogies, (2) figural analogies, (3) verbal series completions, and…