Examining students' inclinations to use algorithms and rules to solve a task was a fruitful area of research in chemical education in the last four decades. This research aimed to examine whether students read the task request carefully, considering its meaningfulness, or they approach it mechanically, applying a set of algorithms by default. The…

As a theory of skill acquisition, the instance theory of automatization posits that, after a period of training, algorithm-based performance is replaced by retrieval-based performance. This theory has been tested using alphabet-arithmetic verification tasks (e.g., is A + 4 = E?), in which the equations are necessarily solved by counting at the…

Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing rather than a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. Using the theoretical lens of epistemological framing, we applied previously developed frames to seek an underlying structure to the long lists of published…

Several types of converging evidence have suggested recently that skilled adults solve very simple addition problems (e.g., 2 + 1, 4 + 2) using a fast, unconscious counting algorithm. These results stand in opposition to the long-held assumption in the cognitive arithmetic literature that such simple addition problems normally are solved by fact…

Learning Disabilities in Mathematics (LDM) or dyscalculia are a frequent and disruptive problem within schools. Nevertheless, this problem has received little attention from researchers and practitioners, if compared with the number of studies published on disabilities in reading. Therefore, teachers do not have enough guidance to help children…

Educational video games provide an opportunity for students to interact with and explore complex representations of academic content and allow for the examination of problem-solving strategies and mistakes that can be difficult to capture in more traditional environments. However, data from such games are notoriously difficult to analyze. This…

The order of problems presented to students is an important variable that affects learning effectiveness. Previous studies have shown that solving problems in a blocked order, in which all problems of one type are completed before the student is switched to the next problem type, results in less effective performance than does solving the problems…

A recent international study of pre-service teachers identified that proportional reasoning was problematic for pre-service teachers. Proportional reasoning is an important topic in the middle years of schooling and therefore it is critical that teachers understand this topic and can rely on their Mathematical Content Knowledge (MCK) when…

The Indian Institute of Science is proud to host the fully in-person sixteenth iteration of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM) during July 11-14, 2023. EDM is the annual flagship conference of the International Educational Data Mining Society. The theme of this year's conference is "Educational data mining for…

When solving basic number fact problems (e.g., 4x5=20), students with mathematical learning disabilities (MLDs) make qualitatively different kinds of errors than both typically achieving and low-achieving students. This study explores the origin of these qualitative differences through a detailed analysis of one student with an MLD. Data were…

We tested human performance on the Euclidean Traveling Salesman Problem using problems with 6-50 cities. Results confirmed our earlier findings that: (a) the time of solving a problem is proportional to the number of cities, and (b) the solution error grows very slowly with the number of cities. We formulated a new version of a pyramid model. The…

The possible use of a calendar algorithm was assessed in DBC, an autistic "savant" of normal measured intelligence. Testing of all the dates in a year revealed a random distribution of errors. Re-testing DBC on the same dates one year later shows that his errors were not stable across time. Finally, DBC was able to answer "reversed" questions that…

An experiment with 67 Australian junior high school students demonstrates that presentation of goal-free 2-move mathematics problems, reducing the use of means-ends analysis, prevents the stage effect (increase in errors at the subgoal stage) from occurring. Implications for enhancing learning are discussed. (SLD)

The 7th International Conference on Education Data Mining held on July 4th-7th, 2014, at the Institute of Education, London, UK is the leading international forum for high-quality research that mines large data sets in order to answer educational research questions that shed light on the learning process. These data sets may come from the traces…