Invention activities and worked solutions are considered to be effective learning tasks. To date, limited research has been conducted regarding these tasks in teacher education and the process of solving these tasks. This study focuses on the solution quality of student teachers' task solutions. 149 students were randomly assigned to one of two…

Background and Context: Multiple studies report that experienced instructors lack consensus on the difficulty of programming tasks for novices. However, adequately gauging task difficulty is needed for alignment: to select and structure tasks in order to assess what students can and cannot do. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine…

In a study of 370 postsecondary students in electronics, engineering, and other science classes, we investigated collaborative problem-solving (CPS) skills that best predict performance at individual levels in an online electronics environment. The results showed that while monitoring was a consistent predictor across levels, other skills such as…

The present study seeks to explore the mathematical connections that 13-14-year-old secondary school students establish when solving area tasks. Emphasis is placed on different mathematical objects, and the connections between them, that allow students to successfully solve the tasks. The study follows a mixed methodology using qualitative and…

Creative problem-solving skills are essential for navigating complex, non-routine challenges, enabling individuals to create unique goals, execute innovative procedures and generate original outcomes. While the link between metacognitive skills and the creativity of outcomes was established only recently, further exploration is required to…

The authors wondered if there was a way to support their reluctant Grades 4, 5, and 6 students in contributing their starting points and strategies and advancing their collective knowledge. They wanted to ensure that the students had the space to develop and take ownership of the strategies they produced through a visual representation of ideas…

We investigated the role of children's conflict monitoring skills in revising an intuitive scientific theory. Children aged 5 to 9 (N = 177; 53% girls, data collected in Germany from 2019-2023) completed computer-based tasks on water displacement, a concept prone to misconceptions. Children predicted which of two objects would displace more water…

The area concept may appear in a wide range of problem situations. The representations used (geometrical, numerical and algebraic) in such situations entail particular practices that condition the partial area meanings. Thus, this study aims to characterize the partial area meanings mobilized in the resolution of area tasks. Each of the area…

Background: Spatial problem-solving is an essential skill for success in many engineering disciplines; thus, understanding the cognitive processes involved could help inform the design of training interventions for students trying to improve this skill. Prior research has yet to investigate the differences in cognitive processes between spatial…

Lexical alignment, a communication phenomenon where conversational partners adapt their word choices to become more similar, plays an important role in the development of language and social communication skills. While this has been studied extensively in the conversations of preschool-aged children and their parents in Western, Educated,…

In the human-to-human Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) test, students' problem-solving process reflects the interdependency among partners. The high interdependency in CPS makes it very sensitive to group composition. For example, the group outcome might be driven by a highly competent group member, so it does not reflect all the individual…

Previous research has highlighted the importance of social relationships in mathematical group work while working on modelling activities. This study analyses the interaction of sixth-grade students in Primary Education (11 to 12 years old) carrying out a modelling task in groups with a Fermi problem used as the modelling activity. The focus of…

Successful adoption of proven effective practice strategies such as distributed practice may contribute to much-needed improvement in mathematics performance. However, it is not yet fully understood if distributed practice is beneficial for long-term retention of complex procedural knowledge and, if so, for which initial practice performance level…

Student veterans are often viewed in popular culture with a deficit mindset. They are "wounded warriors" who are navigating mental health challenges, academically underprepared, and non-traditional students balancing other responsibilities beyond college. Despite potential lingering effects of military service, student veterans bring…

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…