This article presents an outline of a script theory of guidance for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). With its 4 types of components of internal and external scripts (play, scene, role, and scriptlet) and 7 principles, this theory addresses the question of how CSCL practices are shaped by dynamically reconfigured internal…

Data-driven decision making has become an essential component of educational practice across all levels, from chief state school officers to classroom teachers, and has received unprecedented attention in terms of policy and financial support. It was included as one of the four pillars in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009),…

Classroom context and climate are inherently classroom-level (L2) constructs, but applied researchers sometimes--inappropriately--represent them by student-level (L1) responses in single-level models rather than more appropriate multilevel models. Here we focus on important conceptual issues (distinctions between climate and contextual variables;…

The recently fashionable theories of positive psychology have educational ramifications at virtually every level of engagement, culminating in the model of positive education. In this critical review, I scrutinize positive education as a potential theory in educational psychology. Special attention is given to conceptual controversies and…

I explore a belief about learning and teaching that is commonly held in education and society at large that nonetheless is deeply flawed. The belief asserts that mastery of "formalisms"--specialized representations such as symbolic equations and diagrams with no inherent meaning except that which is established by convention--is prerequisite to…

In considering and evaluating approaches to the admission of college students, the usual approach is to try to measure past academic achievement and primarily verbal and math ability on the assumption that these abilities will predict subsequent college academic grades and achievement. These measures do predict classroom achievement, though far…

This article outlines shortcomings of currently used university admissions tests and discusses ways in which they could potentially be improved, summarizing two projects designed to enhance college and university admissions. The projects were inspired by the augmented theory of successful intelligence, according to which successful intelligence…

University admissions tests should predict an applicant's ability to succeed in college, but how should this success be defined and measured? The status quo has been to use 1st-year grade point average (FYGPA) as the key indicator of college success, but a review of documents such as university mission statements reveals that universities expect…

Social-psychological research conducted over the past 15 years provides compelling evidence that pervasive psychological threats are present in common academic environments--especially threats that originate in negative intellectual stereotypes--and that these threats undermine the real-world academic performance of non-Asian ethnic minority…

Standardized tests have been increasingly controversial over recent years in high-stakes admission decisions. Their role in operationalizing definitions of merit and qualification is especially contested, but in law schools this challenge has become particularly intense. Law schools have relied on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and an INDEX…

After more than 100 years of interest and study, knowledge transfer remains among the most challenging, contentious, and important issues for both psychology and education. In this article, we review and discuss many of the more important ideas and findings from the existing research and attempt to bridge this body of work with the exciting new…

Many approaches to instruction focus on helping people learn to recognize "the old in the new"--to turn what would otherwise be novel problems into familiar patterns that can be solved efficiently through the reuse of prior learning. Instruction that leads to efficient transfer is important, but it can also promote what we call "overzealous"…

Many students graduate from K-12 mathematics programs without flexible, conceptual mathematics knowledge. This article reviews psychological and educational research to propose that refining K-12 classroom instruction such that students draw connections through relational comparisons may enhance their long-term ability to transfer and engage with…

We synthesize ideas from the foregoing articles in this special issue and from the broader literature on transfer to explore several themes. In many ordinary life circumstances, transfer proceeds easily, but formal learning often shows much less transfer than educators would like, making failure to transfer a focus of investigation. Transfer, like…

When contexts are framed expansively, students are positioned as actively contributing to larger conversations that extend across time, places, and people. A set of recent studies provides empirical evidence that the expansive framing of contexts can foster transfer. In this article, we present five potentially complementary explanations for how…