With the increase in the development of science and technology, contemporary technological requirements are seen as rising needs of the countries. In this regard, technology can be considered both a means and an end to reach science. Since gifted students are more prone to computer technologies due to their cognitive structures, instructional…

Background: We examined the influence of text and reader characteristics on sixth graders' inference generation. Methods: Eleven- to 12-year-old US monolingual English speakers (N = 71) and Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 81) read narrative and informational expository texts requiring an inference and answered an inference-tapping question after…

This dissertation study investigated the comparability of reading comprehension of narrative and persuasive text by applying a convergent parallel mixed method design. Participants were middle school students (Grades 6 - 8, N=6). The purpose of the study was to address a gap in reading comprehension research about how students comprehend narrative…

Background: Previous studies have shown that undergraduates improve their answering and monitoring accuracy when they exclusively practice and expect inferential questions after reading. This study examined whether children with poor comprehension, who struggle particularly with inferential questions, would benefit from similar practice with and…

An inferential comprehension intervention addressing reading comprehension difficulties of middle schoolers was tested. Method Students in Grades 6 to 8 (n = 145; 53.8% female; 71% White; 24% Black) who failed their state literacy test, were randomly assigned to tutor-led, computerized, or business-as-usual [BaU] interventions. Results The…

This study introduces inferentialism and, particularly, the "Game of Giving and Asking for Reasons" (GoGAR), as a new theoretical perspective for investigating qualities of procedural and conceptual knowledge in mathematics. The study develops a framework in which procedural knowledge and conceptual knowledge are connected to limited and…

We explore 11-12-year-old students' emerging ideas of models and modelling as they engage in a data-modelling task involving inquiry based on data obtained from an experiment. We report on a design-based study in which students identified what and how to measure, decided how to structure and represent data, and made inferences and predictions…

Building on rich training literature, we examined which skills constituting the control-of-variables strategy (CVS) benefit from a comprehensive training, and which develop similarly during content-focused inquiry at ages 10-12. In addition, we examined whether prior knowledge, reasoning abilities, and reading comprehension explain variation in…

This study presents the results of an analysis of Croatian Language and Natural Sciences textbooks used in the fourth and sixth grade of primary education in Croatia. Textbooks are therein seen as core educational materials, influencing teacher practices--specifically, the reading comprehension instruction. Five textbooks were coded for text type,…

Educators expect that students be able to make informed decisions about science-related problems in their everyday lives. Engaging science in such problems often entails evaluating available evidence for given arguments. This study explores how students use inscriptions as evidence to argue about socioscientific issues. Fifth- and sixth-grade…

The goal of this study is to explore the role of model comparison, which is a key activity of young learners' informal reasoning, with statistical models and modeling in the context of informal statistical inference. We suggest a framework to describe this reasoning (the RISM framework), and offer an illustrative case study of two-sixth graders…

This study examines the way teachers make sense of data in the context of high-stakes decision making, such as decisions related to student placement in educational tracks. Different types of data, data collected rationally and intuitively, may be used in this sensemaking process, and the same data may be interpreted in different ways by different…

We examined the relationship between inference making, vocabulary knowledge, and verbal working memory on children's reading comprehension in 62 6th graders (aged 12). The effect of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension was predicted to be partly mediated by inference making for two reasons: Inference making often taps the semantic…

Negative numbers are among the first formalizations students encounter in their mathematics learning that clearly differ from out-of-school experiences. What has not sufficiently been addressed in previous research is the question of how students draw on their prior experiences when reasoning on negative numbers and how they infer from these…

Knowledge representations that result from practicing problem solving can be expected to differ from knowledge representations that emerge from explicit verbalizing of principles and rules. We examined the degree to which the two types of learning improve problem-solving knowledge and verbal explanation knowledge in classroom instruction. We…