Eighth grade students in Australia (N = 60) participated in an experiment on learning how to solve percentage change problems in a regular classroom in three conditions: unitary, pictorial, and equation approaches. The procedure involved a pre-test, an acquisition phase, and a post-test. The main goal was to test the relative merits of the three…

Three experiments with students from 7th and 8th grade were performed to investigate the effects of decorative pictures in learning as compared to instructional pictures. Pictures were considered as instructional, when they were primarily informative, and as decorative, when they were primarily aesthetically appealing. The experiments…

The study examined the effects of two different instructional interventions as support for scientific discovery learning using computer simulations. In two well-known categories of difficulty, data interpretation and self-regulation, instructional interventions for learning with computer simulations on the topic "ecosystem water" were developed…

This study examines the contribution of learner cognitive and motivational characteristics to achievement in science at three grade levels. Specifically, the relations between domain-specific epistemic beliefs about the development and justification of scientific knowledge, achievement goals, knowledge, self-concept, self-efficacy, and achievement…

Two studies examined the effects of four types of teachers' evaluative feedback on Chinese students' self-efficacy in English vocabulary acquisition. In Study 1, a random sample of Grade 8 students (N = 79) learned prefixes and received either formative or summative feedback after failure in test. The results showed that students who received…

"I believe that he/she is telling the truth", "I know about the solar system": what epistemic criteria do students use to distinguish between knowledge and beliefs? If knowing and believing are conceptually distinguishable, do students of different grade levels use the same criteria to differentiate the two constructs? How do students understand…