In this media-saturated society, students need to think more critically about the media they encounter and that they are producing. Through filmmaking, students can link geographic theory and the real world, bridging the distance from readings/lectures/discussions to the geography on the ground, making the abstract concrete. But constructing films…

Visualization of the complex courses of the cranial nerves by students in the health-related professions is challenging through either diagrams in books or plastic models in the gross laboratory. Furthermore, dissection of the cranial nerves in the gross laboratory is an extremely meticulous task. Teaching and learning the cranial nerve pathways…

In a previous article (2014), this author outlined the practical use of visualisation as a way of starting lessons. The purpose of this is to create interest, hold attention, and provide some mental experience of the conceptual learning to follow. In this way, links can be created between the teaching activity in the first few minutes of the…

Heart valves play a vital role in efficient circulation of the blood, and the details of their physical structure are related crucially to their function. However, it can be challenging for the learner to make the mental connection between anatomical structures of valves and the changing pressure gradients that the valves experience and come to an…

This design-based research project investigated the development of functional thinking in algebra for the upper primary years of schooling. Ten teachers and their students were involved in a sequence of five cycles of collaborative planning, team-teaching, evaluating and revising five lessons on functional thinking for their students over one…

It is surprising to students to learn that a natural combination of simple functions, the function sin(1/x), exhibits behaviour that is a great challenge to visualize. When x is large the function is relatively easy to draw; as x gets smaller the function begins to behave in an increasingly wild manner. The sin(1/x) function can serve as one of…

Recently, a new cognitive style approach was introduced, which refers to two types of visualizers. This approach is based on neuropsychological evidence and neuroimaging results, which suggest the existence of two distinct imagery subsystems, the object and the spatial imagery subsystems. The goal of the study was twofold: first to examine a…

The present experiment examined whether 9-month-old infants' mental rotation ability was related to their crawling ability. Forty-eight 9-month-old infants were tested; half of them crawled for 7.1 weeks on average. Infants were habituated to a video of a simplified Shepard-Metzler object rotating back and forth through a 240 degree angle around…

For mental rotation, introspection, theories, and interpretations of experimental results imply a certain type of mental representation, namely, visual mental images. Characteristics of the rotated representation can be examined by measuring the influence of stimulus characteristics on rotational speed. If the amount of a given type of information…

This study examined the effects of mental imagery ability (MIA) on the efficacy of two positive psychology interventions (PPIs) to enhance well-being. Participants (N = 210) were randomly assigned to either: Three Good Things (TGT), Best Possible Selves (BPS), or a control group and completed well-being questionnaires pre and post intervention.…

This meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the magnitude of gender difference in three-dimensional (3-D) mental rotation ability and to investigate how factors related to test administration conditions play a role in varying gender difference effect sizes and threatening validity. Individuals' 3-D mental rotation ability was measured by the…

This chapter provides examples of innovative methods and tools to collect, analyze, and report both quantitative and qualitative data in student affairs assessment.

Computer-aided learning (CAL) is an integral part of many medical courses. The neuroscience course at Oxford University for medical students includes CAL course of neuroanatomy. CAL is particularly suited to this since neuroanatomy requires much detailed three-dimensional visualization, which can be presented on screen. The CAL course was…

In this study, we follow students' modeling and covariational reasoning in the context of learning about big data. A three-week unit was designed to allow 12th grade students in a mathematics course to explore big and mid-size data using concepts such as trend and scatter to describe the relationships between variables in multivariate settings.…

The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the changes in preservice science teachers' beliefs about science teaching during a science teacher training programme. The study was designed as a panel study, and the data were collected from the same participants at the end of each academic year during a four-year period. The participants…