Pictorial representations are often used to help children understand the situation described in a given number-sentence scheme. These static pictorial problems essentially attempt to depict a dynamic situation (e.g., one bird flies away while there are three birds still sitting on the fence). Previous research suggested that such pictorial…

The present study attempted to replicate the previous results of Hu et al. (Learning and Instruction 35:85-93 2015) and further examined the boundary condition of tracing gesture whether its cognitive effect is merely comparable with other attention-guiding means, i.e., textual attention cueing, in two different learning tasks in nature. In two…

In this article we explore female learners' perceptions of learning Grade 11 geometry. Many learners have difficulty in learning geometry in mathematics, thus, teachers and researchers are constantly searching for reasons why learners have challenges with learning geometry with the aim of developing suitable pedagogic strategies to alleviate these…

In this study, the efficiency of various random sampling methods to reduce the number of items rated by judges in an Angoff standard-setting study was examined and the methods were compared with each other. Firstly, the full-length test was formed by combining Placement Test 2012 and 2013 mathematics subsets. After then, simple random sampling…

This study examined how two small-group discourse types (Reflective and Exploratory) supported the inclusion and enacted levels of cognitive demand of students who typically struggle with mathematics in real-world, task-based assessment activities. The study focused on 11 fifth-grade students within a larger study involving 97 fifth-grade students…

Teachers and curriculum specialists are exposed to many ideas from educational leaders, but it is difficult to know which ones can be transformed into meaningful learning experiences in the classroom. "Concept-Based Instruction": (1) Helps educators translate the works of leading educational thinkers into concept-based units; (2) Draws…

This paper presents research and provides a method to ensure that parallel assessments, that are generated from a large test-item database, maintain equitable difficulty and content coverage each time the assessment is presented. To maintain fairness and validity it is important that all instances of an assessment, that is intended to test the…

To investigate the effects previous experience on the impressions of parents regarding computer programming, a survey was carried out before and after parent-children workshops were conducted. The results of the survey showed that the impressions of the participants regarding computer programming after the workshops became more positive than…

This study investigated the effect of LWR and the level of passage difficulty on L2 reading comprehension. Five upper intermediate ESL students were exposed to four different treatment combinations of silent reading and LWR with low and high intrinsic load reading passages. Reading comprehension was measured by immediate recall protocol. Under the…

Struggling with mathematics is important for several reasons. According to learning theorists and empirical studies, the act of struggling can help students learn mathematics. Also, several important mathematics education documents advocate that students should engage in struggle as part of the problem-solving process. In addition, being able to…

How can we improve the instructional effectiveness of an online slideshow lesson? In the present study, college students received a 12-slide multimedia slideshow lesson on how a geographic information system works. In a 2 × 2 design, the lesson was presented one complete slide at a time (large segment) or added one section of the slide at a time…

Word problems embed a math equation within a short narrative. Due to their structure, both numerical and linguistic factors can contribute to problem difficulty. The present studies explored the role of irrelevant information in word problems, to determine whether its negative impact is due to numerical (foregrounding hypothesis) or linguistic…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find appropriate forms of analysis of multiple-choice questions (MCQ) to obtain an assessment method, as fair as possible, for the students. The authors intend to ascertain if it is possible to control the quality of the MCQ contained in a bank of questions, implemented in Moodle, presenting some evidence…

In educational contexts, questioning performs a number of functions. These include facilitating learning in the classroom and the recognition of achievement through examinations and other assessments. Good quality questions are important to ensuring that these functions are achieved. This research focused on educational exams and used views from…

This coda article offers unified theoretical accounts of the major findings of the empirical studies in this special issue of "Optimizing Second Language Practice in the Classroom: Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology." We present a theoretical framework from cognitive psychology (desirable difficulty framework) and link it to the…