To learn content knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and math domains, students need to make connections among visual representations. This article considers two kinds of connection-making skills: (1) "sense-making skills" that allow students to verbally explain mappings among representations and (2) "perceptual…

Experience with a second language (L2) has been shown to facilitate learning of a third or subsequent language (L3) (Sanz 2000). However, little is known about how much L2 experience is needed before benefits for L3 development emerge, or about whether effects depend on type of L3 instruction. We report two experiments investigating initial…

The present study tested the "interference hypothesis"-that learning and using more advanced representations and strategies requires the inhibition of prior, less advanced ones. Specifically, it examined the relation between inhibitory control and number line estimation performance. Experiment 1 compared the accuracy of adults' (N = 53)…

A central goal of the learning sciences is to discover principles that determine the optimal amount of instructional assistance to support robust learning (Koedinger & Aleven, 2007). We examined learning outcomes from providing and withholding stepwise instructional explanations as students studied worked examples and solved physics problems. We…

Wikis as shared digital artifacts may enable users to participate in processes of knowledge building. To what extent and with which quality knowledge building can take place is assumed to depend on the interrelation between people's prior knowledge and the information available in a wiki. In two experimental studies we examined the impact on…

Students are frequently presented with novel visualizations introducing scientific concepts and processes normally unobservable to the naked eye. Despite being unfamiliar, students are expected to understand and employ the visualizations to solve problems. Domain experts exhibit more competency than novices when using complex visualizations, but…

The meaning of fractions with integer multiplication is something that is difficult to understand by students. They tend to think that the product it produces a larger number, while the multiplication of fractions with integers, the result can be any number larger or smaller. This study is a research design that aims to develop a local…

Gestalt psychologists proposed two distinct learning mechanisms. Associative learning occurs gradually through the repeated co-occurrence of external stimuli or memories. Insight learning occurs suddenly when people discover new relationships within their prior knowledge as a result of reasoning or problem solving processes that re-organize or…

Analogies are ubiquitous during instruction in science classrooms, yet research about the effectiveness of using analogies has produced mixed results. An aspect seldom studied is a model of instruction when using analogies. The few existing models for instruction with analogies have not often been examined quantitatively. The Teaching With…