Examines the relationship between the graphical user interface (GUI) and the cognitive demands placed on the learner in eLearning (electronic learning) environments. Describes ways educators can design appropriate interfaces to facilitate meaningful interactions with educational content; and examines learner engagement and engagement theory using…

Discusses the use of hypermedia to accommodate students' individual learning differences and to help students develop complex learning skills to acquire complex knowledge. Examines 10 research studies that investigated interaction between students' learning skills and their use of different forms of instruction. (Author/LRW)

Systematically varied the day-night task requiring children to say "night" to a sun picture and "day" to a moon picture to investigate why young children typically fail the task. Found that reducing memory load did not help performance. Reducing inhibitory demand by requiring an unrelated response or inserting a delay between…

Reviews ancient theory and modern research regarding the effect of imagery on memory. Suggests present-day technical communicators use, where possible, a particular kind of image to illustrate proceduralized instructions. Provides examples and illustrations that create special images. (KEH)

Presents ways that the learning of text structure can occur naturally for adolescents in a whole language framework. Offers five global contexts in which conceptualization, communication, collaboration can occur to help students use language and understand how text is organized. (RS)

Reviews recent complex and somewhat confusing evidence on writing-to-learn. Draws on the field of cognitive psychology to offer a way to reconceptualize how researchers might approach the study of the impact of writing on learning. Considers five methods for assessing structural changes in knowledge due to writing. (MG)

The article examines whether the material-appropriate processing approach can anticipate and explain the mnemonic effects of elaborative encoding tasks and study adjuncts for less able learners. Evidence suggests that less able learners are not capable of spontaneously exploiting the affordances of the to-be-learned material without appropriate…

Discusses concept learning research and theory, and examines the relationship with models of instructional design. Topics discussed include how concepts are learned; how concepts are measured; instructional design for concept learning; inferences; teaching with analogies; use of learning strategies; and new strategies for classification…

Many learning strategies endorsed by curriculum and instruction publications have never demonstrated their worth in objective experimental evaluations. Most researchers agree that cognitive strategies should be taught in conjunction with content and in response to learner needs and capabilities. Teacher modeling and self-regulation lie at the…

The article reviews theories of learning (e.g., stimulus-response, trial and error, operant conditioning, cognitive), considers the role of motivation, and summarizes nine research-supported rules of effective learning. Suggestions are applied to teaching learning strategies to learning-disabled students. (DB)

The article gives suggestions for teaching mainstreamed secondary level learning-disabled and other students notetaking skills. Adaptations to help the student when notes are taken from a lecture and when notes are taken from the chalkboard are offered and include giving the student a lecture outline on which to add notes. (DB)

The paper discusses the degree of generality or specificity adopted in approaches to strategy instruction. The historical context of the generality-specificity dimension is described and related to the strategy instruction literature in special education, and three frameworks for conceptualization of generality-specificity are presented.…

Examines learning style characteristics of developmental and nondevelopmental junior college students. Finds significant differences between developmental and nondevelopmental students including field dependence, learning in the afternoon, sound present during learning, and motivation. Finds that field dependence-independence was the single best…

Findings from a study of 111 high school biology students indicate that students who received instruction combining a pictorial analogy comparing the cell to a factory and an analogical study guide displayed significantly better comprehension of this material than did their peers, whose instruction did not include the pictorial representation.…

Two studies investigated 320 college students' knowledge about the effectiveness of alternative memory strategies for different tasks and the relationship of this knowledge to strategy use and task performance. Results indicate that students did know the relative effectiveness of different strategies, supporting current models of metamemory. (SLD)