Readers build a mental representation of text during reading. The coherence building processes readers use to build a mental representation during reading is key to comprehension. We examined the effects of self- explanation on coherence building processes as undergraduates (n =51) read five complementary texts about natural selection and…

Research on student thinking facilitates the design of instructional materials that build on student ideas. The pieces framework views student knowledge as consisting of independent pieces that students assemble in fluctuating ways based on the context at hand. This perspective affords important insights about the reasons students think the way…

In this experiment we investigated whether the presentation of domain principles within one text facilitates reading to learn from multiple exemplar texts that feature the importance of the principles. There were five texts about natural selection: a principles text, which described principles of natural selection, and four exemplar-based texts…

Understanding molecular processes and coordinating the various activities across levels of organization in biological systems is a complicated task, yet many curricular guidelines indicate that undergraduate students should master it. Employing mechanistic reasoning can facilitate describing and investigating biological phenomena. Biofilms are an…

This article documents differences between novice and experienced undergraduate students' processes of reading mathematical proofs as revealed by moment-by-moment, think-aloud protocols. We found three key reading behaviors that describe how novices' reading differed from that of their experienced peers: alternative task models, accrual of…

The purpose of this study is to develop a thinking process model that reveals cognitive bias through analyzing students' cognitive biases in processing experimental manuals. Twenty-two college students participated in the study. During the "making electromagnets" experimental activity, we collected students' concurrent verbal protocols,…

This study measures the threshold level of depth of word knowledge in L2 incidental learning and reading comprehension. I administered the Word Associates Test (WAT; Read, 2004) to measure depth of word knowledge. Based on participants' scores on the WAT, they were divided into three proficiency groups: high proficiency (HP), intermediate…

This study investigates how implicit and explicit learning and knowledge are associated, by focusing on the salience of target form--meaning connections. The participants were engaged in incidental learning of artificial determiner systems that included grammatical rules of [± plural] (a taught rule), [± actor] (a more salient hidden rule), and [±…

The purpose of this study was to investigate bridging inferences and learning when students with low topic knowledge read multiple complementary biology texts. Using a think-aloud protocol, we assessed students' (n = 74) cognitive processes while they read one text about principles of natural selection and three texts about examples of natural…

Van den Broek's landscape model explicitly posits sequences of moves during reading in real time. Two other models that implicitly describe sequences of processes during reading are tested in the present research. Coded think-aloud data from 24 undergraduate students reading scientific text were analysed with lag-sequential techniques to compare…

Reasoning skills have been clearly related to achievement in introductory undergraduate biology, a course with a high failure rate that may contribute to dropout from undergraduate STEM majors. Existing measures are focused on the experimental method, such as generating hypotheses, choosing a research method, how to control variables other than…

This paper describes the results of a comparative study into the approaches used by science undergraduates when solving open-ended problems. This study adopted a pseudo-grounded theory framework to analyse six case studies, one from each of the science disciplines studied. The study involved 70 participants from 5 institutions solving open-ended…

This study examines the moderating effects of a situational factor (i.e., text type) and an individual factor (i.e., subject-matter knowledge) on the relation between depth of processing and performance. One-hundred and fifty-one undergraduates completed measures of subject-matter knowledge, read either an expository or persuasive text about the…

Undergraduate biology education reform aims to engage students in scientific practices such as experimental design, experimentation, and data analysis and communication. Graphs are ubiquitous in the biological sciences, and creating effective graphical representations involves quantitative and disciplinary concepts and skills. Past studies…

General chemistry is the first undergraduate course in which students further develop their understanding of fundamental chemical concepts. Many of these fundamental topics highlight the numerous conceptual interconnections present in chemistry. However, many students possess incoherent knowledge structures regarding these topics. Therefore,…