Although students often appear to be skilled in retrieving and making use of information from the internet, research shows that their information problem solving skills are overestimated. They show deficiencies in many of the necessary skills, such as generation of search terms, selection of sources, and critical processing of information. It is…

The Dirac delta function is a standard mathematical tool that appears repeatedly in the undergraduate physics curriculum in multiple topical areas including electrostatics, and quantum mechanics. While Dirac delta functions are often introduced in order to simplify a problem mathematically, students still struggle to manipulate and interpret them.…

In this paper we investigated the contribution of a dynamic testing procedure, including multiple graduated prompts protocols, in identifying differences in need for instruction of second grade children (N = 120) with arithmetic difficulties. The training was adaptive and prompts were provided according to one of six protocols, each focusing on a…

The article provides a review of recent research on insight problem-solving performance. We discuss what insight problems are, the different types of classic and newer insight problems, and how we can classify them. We also explain some of the other aspects that affect insight performance, such as hints, analogs, training, thinking aloud, and…

Students learned about electrical circuits in an arcade-type game consisting of 10 levels. For example, in one level students saw two circuits consisting of various batteries and resistors connected in series or parallel, and had to indicate which one had a higher rate of moving current. On levels 1-9, all students received a correct tone and had…

How does the type of learning material impact what is learned? The current research investigates the nature of students' learning of math concepts when using manipulatives (Uttal, Scudder, & DeLoache, 1997). We examined how the type of manipulative (concrete, abstract, none) and problem-solving prompt (metacognitive or problem-focused) affect…

Research is only beginning to show the benefits of the effective use of manipulatives with students who have disabilities. This article highlights how teachers can incorporate three manipulative instructional strategies to help students with high-incidence disabilities.