Stimulating thinking related to mathematical content is the focus of many tasks in the mathematics classroom. Beyond such content-related thinking, promoting forms of higher order thinking is among the goals of mathematics instruction as well. So-called hybrid tasks focus on combining both goals: they aim at fostering mathematical thinking and…

This study investigates young children's responses to viewing artworks in a preschool setting. Based on the responses of 15 children aged five to six years during five art viewing sessions in a preschool in Singapore, the study examines features of what young children see, think and feel when they view artworks. These sessions were facilitated by…

What are the personal characteristics that distinguish the creative scientist from the less creative scientist? This study used the concept of implicit theory in a four-part study of scientists and graduate students in science. In the first part, we collected 1382 adjective words that describe the personal characteristics of the creative scientist…

The present study investigates collaborative learners' adoption of key regulation activities (i.e., orienting, planning, monitoring, and evaluating) and a deep-level regulation approach in relation to characteristics of their collaboration on the cognitive and communicative level. More specifically, the correlation of collaborative learners'…

We examine the joint effects of gender and experience on statistical reasoning. Participants with various levels of experience in statistics completed the Statistical Reasoning Assessment (Garfield, 2003), along with individual difference measures assessing cognitive ability and thinking dispositions. Although the performance of both genders…

Vygotsky's work on the individual/social relation provides theoretical tools for interpreting the origins of thinking and learning. Drawing on Vygotsky's ideas and data from one classroom, categories of practice relating to teaching and learning were developed in order to identify themes for an exploration of mathematical development within the…

The purpose of this study was to implement a Video Simulation Task in a mathematics methods teacher education course to engage preservice teachers in considering both the teaching and learning aspects of mathematics lesson delivery. Participants anticipated student and teacher thinking and created simulations, in which they acted out scenes on a…

There are clear associations between the overall quantity of input children are exposed to and their vocabulary acquisition. However, by uncovering specific features of the input that matter, we can better understand the mechanisms involved in vocabulary learning. We examine whether exposure to "wh"-questions, a challenging quality of…

Although the development of critical thinking (CT) is a major goal of science education, adequate emphasis has not been given to the measurement of CT skills in specific science domains such as physics. Recognizing that adequately assessing CT implies the assessment of both domain-specific and domain-general CT skills, this study reports on the…

The authors recently studied how well schools were teaching a a range of complex, higher-order skills. Their findings were grim. Out of 25 skills that researchers have found to be critical to success in life and work, just three were the focus of most instruction: recall, application, and (occasionally) analysis. Even when teachers explicitly made…

Previous work provided foundations for the theory of web-mediated knowledge synthesis, a framework for using the web in more creative and generative ways. This article explores specific instances of the various elements of that theory in a single case from the initial study. That is, a thorough exploration of think-aloud, screen capture, and…

Technical schools are an integral part of the education system, and yet, little is known about student learning at such institutions. We consider whether assessments of student learning can be jointly administered to both university and technical school students. We examine whether differential test functioning may bias inferences regarding the…

Objective: This study was aimed at determining the external validity of the psychometric properties of a two-factor Collegiate Learning Assessment Performance Task Diagnostic Instrument (CLAPTDI) for use in assessing learning skills among predominantly black college students. The construct validity of the two factors CLAPTDI had been established…

This research study focuses on how an aesthetic reading stance with dystopian literature can aid teens in the development of historical thinking skills. My research is based on ideas from Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory and Sam Wineburg's concept and definition for historical thinking along with the UCLA Standards for Historical Thinking.…

We report on efforts to better understand the questioning practices used by preservice elementary teachers (PSTs), including the range of preferred question types and the values they invoke when evaluating their questions. We sought to determine whether teachers exhibited consistent patterns in selecting questions with certain features, such as…