Organic reaction mechanisms lie at the heart of developing an understanding of how the molecular world functions. However, many students simply try to memorize mechanisms, or use their knowledge of the reagent and product to create a mechanism that "works". This is not helped by the content-heavy organic chemistry curriculum which…

Collaborative problem-solving (CPS) includes multiple socio-cognitive processes that can be challenging to investigate. Constructing arguments is a key practice at the intersection of CPS and science learning. To understand how students construct arguments and develop science knowledge during CPS, we focus on team synchrony--the extent of…

Students enter classrooms equipped with a rich foundation of skills and knowledge from their everyday experiences. High-quality science education builds on students' wealth of experience in making sense of the world. In science classrooms, "sensemaking" is a collaborative practice that includes students sharing initial ideas with peers…

In science education, building models of dynamical systems is a promising method for understanding various natural phenomena and artifacts with scientific concepts. It is, however, difficult to learn skills and concepts necessary for modeling. Though several model-building learning environments (MBEs) have been developed with potentially useful…

In this paper, we applied a number of clustering algorithms on pretest data collected from 264 high-school students. Students took the pre-test at the beginning of a 5-week experiment in which they interacted with an intelligent tutoring system. The primary goal of this work is to identify clusters of students exhibiting similar knowledge…

Background: Engaging students in computer-assisted guided inquiry learning has great potential to scaffold their scientific understanding: Students are expected to improve their scientific problem-solving skills, and at the same time gain a deep conceptual understanding of the subject-matter. Additional generative activities such as creating video…

Problem-solving has been one of the major strands in science education research. But much of the problem-solving research has been conducted on discipline-based contexts; little research has been done on how students, especially individuals, solve interdisciplinary problems. To understand how individuals reason about interdisciplinary problems, we…

Researchers have long recognized the potential benefits of open-ended computer- based learning environments (OELEs) to help students develop self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviours. However, measuring self-regulation in these environments is a difficult task. In this paper, we present our work in developing and evaluating "coherence…

Previous studies have reported that students employed different problem solving approaches when presented with the same task structured with different representations. In this study, we explored and compared students' strategies as they attempted tasks from two topical areas, kinematics and work. Our participants were 19 engineering students…

Problem solving is a highly valued skill in chemistry. Courses within this discipline place a substantial emphasis on problem-solving performance and tend to weigh such performance heavily in assessments of learning. Researchers have dedicated considerable effort investigating individual factors that influence problem-solving performance. The…

This exploratory study presents the outcomes of using self-explanation to improve learners' performance in solving basic chemistry problems. The results of the randomized experiment show the existence of a moderation effect between prior knowledge and the level of support self-explanation provides to learners, suggestive of a synergistic effect…

This study investigated the impact of different modes of scaffolding on students who are learning science through a web-based collaborative inquiry project in authentic classroom settings and explored the interaction effects with students' characteristics. The intervention study aimed to improve "domain-specific knowledge" and "metacognitive…

Making assumptions is an important step in solving many real-world problems. This study investigated whether participants who could solve well-defined physics problems could also solve a real-world physics problem that involved the need to make assumptions. The participants, who all had at least a BA in physics, were videotaped "thinking aloud"…

This study was designed as a confirmatory study of work on "productive failure" (Kapur, "Cognition and Instruction," 26(3), 379-424, 2008). N = 177, 11th-grade science students were randomly assigned to solve either well- or ill-structured problems in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment without the provision of any…

This article reports on a study that investigated students' metacognitive engagement in both out-of-school and classroom settings, as they participated in an amusement park physics program. Students from two schools that participated in the program worked in groups to collectively solve novel physics problems that engaged their individual…