Parents and teachers at seven elementary schools were surveyed to determine their opinions of the importance of Gardner's eight different ways of thinking and learning. Parent and teacher opinions were highest in the four areas of logical-mathematical, intrapersonal, linguistic and interpersonal, which were all rated very important. Next in…

The objective of this research is to ascertain whether new instructional techniques can improve critical thinking. To achieve this goal, two different instruction techniques (ARDESOS--group 1--and DIAPROVE--group 2--) were studied and a pre-post assessment of critical thinking in various dimensions such as argumentation, inductive reasoning,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the 5E learning model affects learning about the Solar System when an analogical model is utilized in teaching. The data were gathered in an urban middle school 7th grade science course while teaching relevant astronomy topics. The analogical model developed by the researchers was administered to 20…

How best to promote fluency with basic sums and differences is still not entirely clear. Some advocate a direct approach--using drill to foster memorization of basic facts by rote. Others recommend an indirect approach that first involves learning reasoning strategies. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of 2…

Understanding how instructional techniques and classroom norms influence in-class student interactions has the potential to positively impact student learning. Many previous studies have shown that students benefit from discussing their ideas with one another in class. In this study of introductory biology students, we explored how using an…

As China and the United States become the top two carbon emitters in the world, it is crucial for citizens in both countries to construct a sophisticated understanding of energy consumption issues. This interview study examines how U.S. and Chinese students compare in explaining and arguing about two critical energy consumption issues: burning…

Purpose: The present study investigated whether or not the benefits of interleaving of exemplars from several categories vary with retention interval in inductive learning. Methodology: Two experiments were conducted using paintings (Experiment 1) and textual materials (Experiment 2), and the experiments used a mixed factorial design. Forty…

A theory of listening to music is proposed. It suggests that, for listeners, the process of prediction is the starting point to experiencing music. This implies that perception of music starts through both a predisposed and an experience-based extrapolation into the future (this is labeled "a priori" listening). Indications for this…

During the preschool years, children develop an understanding of 2 types of real/not-real distinctions: ontological status and authenticity (Bunce & Harris, 2008). Two studies compared 3- to 5-year-old children's real/not-real judgments and justifications for 3 types of contrast involving a real entity and either a fictional character, a child…

Eastern philosophies of education such as Confucianism and Taosim advocate the use of silence in the teacher-pupil tradition of pedagogy. We investigate contemporary classrooms in Korea, and study whether teachers in Korea today incorporate this method implicitly or explicitly in their classrooms. Empirical data in the form of video-taped…

Recent studies have shown that the interpretation of graphs is not always easy for students. In order to reason properly about distributions of data, however, one needs to be able to interpret graphical representations of these distributions correctly. In this study, we used Tversky's principles for the design of graphs to explain how 125…

Some studies conducted on ADHD have found a statistically significant relationship between those diagnosed with the disorder and a higher susceptibility to abuse alcohol. However, other studies have found no such correlation, or have found this to be true of only a nonstatistically significant subset of the population of individuals with ADHD.…

We have augmented the Deep Thought logic tutor with a Hint Factory that generates data-driven, contextspecific hints for an existing computer aided instructional tool. We investigate the impact of the Hint Factory's automatically generated hints on educational outcomes in a switching replications experiment that shows that hints help students…

In this conceptual paper, we propose an heuristic to balance context-specific and generic scaffolding, as well as computer-based and teacher scaffolding, during instruction centered on authentic, scientific problems. This paper is novel in that many researchers ask a dichotomous question of whether generic or context-specific scaffolding is best,…

Clinical reasoning is an essential competency in medical education. This study aimed at developing and validating a test to assess diagnostic accuracy, collected information, and diagnostic decision time in clinical reasoning. A norm-referenced computer-based test for the assessment of clinical reasoning (ASCLIRE) was developed, integrating the…