Recent instructional reforms in science education aim to change the way students engage in learning in the discipline, as they describe that students are to engage with disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and the practices of science to make sense of phenomena (NRC, 2012). For such sensemaking to become a reality, there is a need to…

The study investigated interactions between learner expertise and task complexity evaluated from both cognitive and affective perspectives. One hundred and seventy-three students, both novices and advanced learners, were asked to learn Japanese writing in a pen-tablet-based digital learning environment with varying task complexity levels.…

This paper designs and develops a computer programming learning system for total beginners and those who have no programming experience. The traditional computer programming learning systems require prior knowledge about variables, their types, operators for arithmetic calculations and relational calculations etc., for adopting a wide range of…

The objective of textbook study is to create high-quality textbooks. Analysis was done using a praxeological-didactical analysis (PDA) method. PDA offers space to analyze curriculum materials, such as math textbooks, which are the outcome of human action in the anthropology of a specific nation's society. There are 10 types of tasks given in the…

The present study compared individual and collaborative vocabulary learning through two types of reading-based pedagogical tasks in an online elementary Arabic classroom. Fifty-two beginner learners of Arabic completed a pretest, a story-based task (either multiple-choice or gap-fill) with embedded novel vocabulary, and two posttests over a 2-week…

Games are often used to foster student engagement and motivation to learn content, such as mathematics. Although digital games dominate game-based learning research, the table games commonly used in classrooms warrant investigation. Especially for mathematics learning, prior research has not taken into account content-specific frameworks. Integer…

Task complexity and communication modes are two task design and implementation factors that have been found to affect second language (L2) learners' oral performance. While increasing task complexity and developing tasks according to the features of face-to-face and computer-mediated communication modes can optimise L2 production, few studies…

This paper is a quantitative study about learners' engagement and self-efficacy within a Virtual Reality (VR) learning environment while studying vocabulary in English in a classroom implementing a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach. VR was used as a tool for students to learn and better understand specific concepts studied…

Despite evidence on the interaction between cognitive individual differences (IDs) and task complexity, our knowledge of how affective IDs, such as foreign language enjoyment (FLE), interact with task complexity and other factors is limited. Since tasks and activities were found by Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014) to be most relevant to FLE, and since…

Self-efficacy in mathematics is related to engagement, persistence, and academic performance. Prior research focused mostly on examining changes to students' self-efficacy across large time intervals (months or years), and paid less attention to changes at the level of lesson sequences. Knowledge of how self-efficacy changes during a sequence of…

Cognitive effort is costly and this cost likely influences the activities in which children engage. Yet, little is known about how school-age children perceive cognitive effort. The subjective value of cognitive effort, that is, how valuable or costly effort is perceived, was investigated in seventy-three 7- to 12-year-olds using an effort…

At some UK universities, non-credit bearing courses for the general public are offered in a wide range of languages, often taught by hourly paid staff. Ensuring similar, high quality learning experiences and learning outcomes across languages can be a challenge. This study inquired into the viability and value of a consciousness-raising approach,…

Recent research points to the need for a specific research focus on language task engagement because task engagement can lead to increased motivation, persistence, satisfaction, and learner achievement (Early, Rogge, & Deci, 2014; Henri, Halverson, & Graham, 2015; Reeve & Lee, 2014); a major gap in the research in this area is the lack…

The study addresses the question of what makes a mathematical task interesting to the 9th year students. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 15 students of purposive selection of the 9th year. The students were asked to recall a task they found interesting and engaging during the past three years. An analysis of the tasks was made…

This study draws on Sociocultural Theory to explore how 12 adult EFL learners engaged in pair work, how their willingness to engage was demonstrated in pair activities, and what other factors influenced that willingness. Six pairs engaged in seven different activities and were interviewed after all activities were completed. Each pair's type of…