The purpose of this three-arm randomized controlled trial was to explore the impact of multi-tiered explicit and systematic narrative language instruction on the language students are expected to understand and produce in the school setting (e.g., reading and writing). A sample of 210 kindergarten students were assigned to three conditions:…

The Concept Formation subtest of the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities represents a dynamic test due to continual provision of feedback from examiner to examinee. Yet, the original scoring protocol for the test largely ignores this dynamic structure. The current analysis applies a dynamic adaptation of an explanatory item response…

This study examined the quality and types of mathematical tasks used for classroom instruction in an upper secondary school -- gymnasium. All the mathematical tasks presented in nine different school classrooms during the first semester of the school year 2018/2019 were analysed against a 5D analytical framework. The dimensions of the individual…

One of the most widely used communication tools in evaluation is the logic model. Despite its extensive use, there has been little research into the visualization aspect of the logic model. To assess the impact that design modifications would have on its effectiveness, we applied established visualization principles to revise a program model.…

Background: Investigating the relationship between the human body and its spatial environment is a critical component in understanding the process of acquiring spatial knowledge. However, few empirical evaluations have looked at how the visual accessibility of an environment affects spatial learning. To address this gap, this paper focuses on…

Cognitive complexity (CC)--the ability to differentiate and integrate in a dynamic environment--has been shown to be essential to understanding complex and uncertain environments. However, educational leaders' CC has not been examined. In the current exploratory research, we examine the effect of school middle leaders' CC in relation to their Big…

Serious games are becoming increasingly popular due to their association with increased learning outcomes when compared to traditional self-regulated learning activities. However, the majority of research examining the outcomes of serious games has focused almost exclusively on learning outcomes. This has resulted in a lack of research examining…

Four experiments examined the claims that people can intuitively assess the logical validity of arguments, and that qualitatively different reasoning processes drive intuitive and explicit validity assessments. In each study participants evaluated arguments varying in validity and believability using either deductive criteria (logic task) or via…

Human adults are adept at mitigating the influence of sensory uncertainty on task performance by integrating sensory cues with learned prior information, in a Bayes-optimal fashion. Previous research has shown that young children and infants are sensitive to environmental regularities, and that the ability to learn and use such regularities is…

Instructional design deals with the optimization of learning processes. To achieve this, three aspects need to be considered: (1) the learning task itself, (2) the design of the learning material, and (3) the activation of the learner's cognitive processes during learning. Based on Cognitive Load Theory, learners also need to deal with the task…

Many educators assign course readings to purposefully enlarge students' perspectives. In doing so, though, educators may face a range of behaviors--reluctance, resistance, avoidance, disengagement--from students who feel that such readings negatively press upon their prior knowledge, belief systems, or educational goals. This teaching challenge is…

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of curricular organization on student cognitive load and student performance in online learning environments. The findings of this study contribute to the development of usable instruction design principles for online education. This research study used the lens of cognitive load theory to…

The development of students' argumentation competence is one of the major aims of science education and everyday problems, such as decisions on the consumption of tap water or bottled water, which may be suitable contexts to encourage it. Citizens consider of interest certain controversies associated with the bottled water consumption as an…

In this eye-tracking experiment, we compared instructional videos with static signals, dynamic signals and no signaling in a within-subject design. We tracked eye movements from 28 undergraduate chemistry students while they were watching instructional videos about reaction mechanisms in the different signaling conditions. Further, we assessed…

Much of the attention given to literacy, of late, has focused on ensuring that students can read, without consideration to what they are given to read. Kristin Conradi Smith & Elfrieda H. Hiebert discuss four general aspects of the texts used in elementary classrooms -- text complexity, text type (narrative versus informational), text format…