The paper presents results of two case studies with undergraduate students majoring in applied mathematics and engineering. The first case study deals with students' preferences for and difficulties with application problems and pure mathematics questions in their courses. The students were majoring in applied mathematics and taking a second-year…

The concept of productive failure posits that a problem-solving phase prior to explicit instruction is more effective than explicit instruction followed by problem-solving. This prediction was tested with Year 5 primary school students learning about light energy efficiency. Two, fully randomised, controlled experiments were conducted. In the…

Background and context: Transfer is a process where students apply their learning to different contexts. This process includes using their knowledge to solve problems with similar complexity, and in new contexts. In the context of programming, transfer also includes being able to understand and use different programming languages. Objective: This…

In conventional ancient Chinese poetry learning, students tend to be under-motivated and fail to understand many aspects of poetry. As generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has been applied to education, image-GAI (iGAI) provides great opportunities for students to generate visualized images based on their descriptions of poems, and to situate…

In this study, we investigated whether playing an escape room game after explicit instruction (instruction-first group, N = 20) is more effective to learn about copyright and media law than playing the game before explicit instruction (problem-solving-first group, N = 21). This is an important question as escape room games are complex,…

Self-directed student learning begins with self-directed educators. Teachers in Greenville, North Carolina, are training in the Habits of Mind, a series of thinking behaviors that support self-directed learning by helping students successfully tackle complex problems. The authors outline key instructional strategies that have grown from these…

We performed a meta-analysis of dual-task experiments to assess the robustness of the effects of conducting working memory secondary tasks on arithmetic performance. Four hundred effect sizes from 21 studies from 1,049 participants were analyzed across a variety of specifications. Results revealed that increases in working memory load resulted in…

Spatial thinking is a crucial aspect of geography education with which all citizens should be equipped. This study employs eye-tracking technology to research strategies (their repertoire, distribution, effectiveness, and adaptiveness) used by upper-secondary students when analyzing spatial patterns with thematic maps. The results show that…

Research has uncovered a semantic cue effect for short inconsistent word problems; the presence of functionally related objects makes them easier for pupils than the presence of categorically related ones. This study builds on this result by investigating other types of problems. Variants of problems differing in a semantic cue were solved by…

Although collaborative learning is becoming a widely popular instructional method, little research has been undertaken considering human cognitive structures and their influence on the design of collaborative learning tasks. Using cognitive load theory as a theoretical framework in this study, forty-five undergraduate students were assigned to…

As assessments move from traditional paper-pencil administration to computer-based administration, many testing programs are incorporating alternative item types (AITs) into assessments with the goals of measuring higher-order thinking, offering insight into problem-solving, and representing authentic real-world tasks. This paper explores multiple…

This study aimed to examine Grade 7 students' perceptions toward Math word problems to help improve their problem-solving skills since the said skill is important and essential for all students to possess. This study used a descriptive survey made by the researchers and consisted of 15 statements of feelings regarding Math word problems; the…

Co-thought gestures are understudied as compared to co-speech gestures yet, may provide insight into cognitive functions of gestures that are independent of speech processes. A recent study with adults showed that co-thought gesticulation occurred spontaneously during mental preparation of problem solving. Moreover, co-thought gesturing (either…

The main problem in students' lower achievement lies in the cognitive complexity of the problem. The aim of this research was to create and validate the procedure for the assessment of the cognitive complexity of chemical technology problem tasks. The procedure included the creation of Tables for assessing the difficulty of concepts in chemical…

People can make pointing gestures and tracing actions with the index finger with little or no conscious effort. From the perspective of cognitive load theory, such "biologically primary" gestures and actions might help people learn "biologically secondary" concepts and skills requiring extended cognitive effort, such as…