Solving new problems can be made easier if one can build on experiences with other problems one has already successfully solved. The ability to exploit earlier problem-solving experiences in solving new problems seems to require several cognitive sub-abilities. Minimally, one needs to be able to retrieve relevant knowledge of earlier solved…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the insights of a small group of women to determine factors important in encouraging creative confidence and specific activities that would contribute to creative growth. There were three research questions that guided the study, using an open-ended questionnaire and a focus group…

Think-aloud and self-report data from 65 undergraduates were used to examine the effect of feedback on self-regulation during learning with hypermedia. Participants, randomly assigned to one of three conditions (Control, Questions, Questions+Feedback), used hypermedia for 30 minutes to learn about the circulatory system. Results indicated that…

This article reports an analysis of 44 prospective middle school mathematics teachers' pre-existing knowledge of rigid geometric transformations, specifically the geometric translations. The main data source for this study was the participants' responses to the tasks that were presented during semi-structured clinical interviews. The findings of…

The effects of epistemic beliefs and text structure on cognitive processes during comprehension of scientific texts were investigated. On-line processes were measured using think-aloud (Experiment 1) and reading time (Experiment 2) methodologies. Measures of off-line comprehension, prior knowledge and epistemic beliefs were obtained. Results…

Much research has explored the extent to which statistical computations account for the extraction of linguistic information. However, it remains to be studied how language-specific constraints are imposed over these computations. In the present study we investigated if the violation of a word-forming rule in Catalan (the presence of more than one…

Measurements of literacy learning in schools, the authors argue, have settled into static and individualized understandings of what should be the most invigorating and social aspect of schooling for youth. By contrast, this article explores the place of aesthetic, dialogic, and performative forms of literacy in the adolescent classroom by…

In 3 experiments, we examined the effects of using concrete and/or abstract visual problem representations during instruction on students' problem-solving practice, near transfer, problem representations, and learning perceptions. In Experiments 1 and 2, novice students learned about electrical circuit analysis with an instructional program that…

This study investigates questions students ask related to an introductory text about a new topic in the history classroom. The effects of a narrative, problematizing, and expository introductory text on the situational interest of students and the number and type of student-generated questions, are compared. Participants are 174 students in higher…

What events trigger causal explanatory reasoning in young children? Children's explanations could be triggered by either consistent events (suggesting that explanations serve a confirmatory function) or inconsistent events (suggesting that they promote discovery of new information). In 2 studies with preschool children (N = 80), events that were…

This article reports on two experiments where undergraduates read five documents on a scientific topic and afterwards answered comprehension questions and wrote either summaries or argument essays on the topic. In the first experiment, students who were instructed to work with the documents for the purpose of summarizing their contents displayed…

Based on the schema theory, it has been found that the background knowledge of males and females differs. This difference in background knowledge can affect the students' reading comprehension. In Iran, although boys and girls study in different schools, they follow the same curricula and syllabuses in all the schools. The present article reports…

This study explores the relative contribution to EFL reading comprehension of the following individual-difference variables: prior knowledge, topic interest, linguistic proficiency, gender, reading motivation, and metacognitive awareness. It also investigates the relationship between the aforementioned individual differences and the role of text…

This study utilizes theory from situated cognition to investigate faculty beliefs about student learning and their influence on teaching decisions. Results of interviews with and observations of 56 science and math faculty found that the two most common beliefs are: (a) students learn best through repeated practice, and (b) students have different…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how literature discussion affects middle school struggling readers. The focus was on 16 middle school struggling readers in a rural Title I school in the southeastern United States. Findings indicated that (a) literature discussion increased student enjoyment of reading, and (b) students…