Capacities for abstract thinking and problem-solving are central to human cognition. Processes of abstraction allow the transfer of experiences and knowledge between contexts helping us make informed decisions in new or changing contexts. While we are often inclined to relate such reasoning capacities to individual minds and brains, they may in…

The ability to reason about how things were made is a pervasive aspect of how humans make sense of physical objects. Such reasoning is useful for a range of everyday tasks, from assembling a piece of furniture to making a sandwich and knitting a sweater. What enables people to reason in this way even about novel objects, and how do people draw…

This study aimed to design, develop, and validate the RSiSTEM framework, a robotics-based simulation learning model intended to foster students' problem-solving and systems thinking competencies within STEM education. The research followed a two-phase developmental design. In Phase 1, the framework was constructed through a systematic synthesis of…

This research, following a sequential mixed-methods design, delves into metacognitive control in problem solving among 5- to 6-year-olds, using two floor-robot environments. In an initial qualitative phase, 82 pupils participated in tasks in which they directed a floor robot to one of two targets, with the closer target requiring more cognitive…

The education system evolves and transforms towards interactive and immersive learning tools in this digital age. Augmented reality has also evolved as a ubiquitous, robust, and effective technology for providing innovative educational tools. In engineering education, many abstract concepts require technological intervention for conceptual…

Teaching introductory statistics using curricula focused on modeling and simulation is becoming increasingly common in introductory statistics courses and touted as a more beneficial approach for fostering students' statistical thinking. Yet, surprisingly little research has been conducted to study the impact of modeling and simulation curricula…

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) can be defined as those psychological processes that enable a person to achieve goals under complex conditions, which are characterized by their complexity, connectivity, dynamics, lack of transparency, and polytely. Although many hypothesized influences have previously been tested concerning their relevance for the…

Conflicting explanations and unrelated information in science classrooms increase cognitive load and decrease efficiency in learning. This reduced efficiency ultimately limits one's ability to solve reasoning problems in the science. In reasoning, it is the ability of students to sift through and identify critical pieces of information that is of…

Aim/Purpose: To identify and rectify the learning difficulties of online learners. Background: The major cause of learners' failure and non-acquisition of knowledge relates to their weaknesses in certain areas necessary for optimal learning. We focus on e-learning because, within this environment, the learner is mostly affected by these…

The use of external representations has the potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially hypothesis generation and reasoning, which typically present difficulties for students. This study describes a novel three-dimensional cognitive mapping (3DCM) approach that supports inquiry learning by allowing learners to combine the information on a…

If students really understand the systems they study, they would be able to tell how changes in the system would affect a result. This demands that the students understand the mechanisms that drive its behaviour. The study investigates potential merits of learning how to explicitly model the causal structure of systems. The approach and…

The cognitive processes in a widely used, non-verbal test of analytic intelligence--the Raven Progressive Matrices Test (J. C. Raven, 1962)--were analyzed. The analysis determined which processes distinguished between higher-scoring and lower-scoring subjects and which processes were common to all subjects and all items on the test. The analysis…

Two studies were conducted to determine the effects of gender, reasoning level, and inductive and deductive computer-simulated experiments (CSE) on problem-solving abilities in introductory general chemistry. In the pilot study, 254 subjects were randomly assigned to control (computer-assisted-instruction tutorials), inductive or deductive CSE…

An examination of Dutch research on legal case solving revealed that few law students get systematic instruction or testing in the technique of legal problem solving. The research being conducted at the Department of Computer Science and Law at the University of Amsterdam focuses on identifying the different functions in legal reasoning tasks in…

Two experiments assessed whether children's difficulty with word problems can be attributed to difficulty in comprehending abstract or ambiguous language. The subjects were 38 first-, 36 second-, and 36 third-graders. The resulting theory of arithmetic word problem solving may represent a theoretical problem-solving model. (TJH)