This study assessed the effects of explicit teaching of metastrategic knowledge (MSK) on gains of low-achieving (LA) and high-achieving (HA) 5th grade students (N=41). Gains in reasoning scores of students from the Experimental group (compared to students from the control group) were obtained on the strategic and on the metastrategic level. Gains…

This study investigates the effects of the learning/teaching environment on students' approaches to learning (i.e. combination of intention and learning strategies) and compares a lecture based to a student-activating setting within the first year of elementary teacher education. Data collection (N = 790) was carried out using a pre-test/post-test…

Studied secondary language learning and literacy practices for Swedish deaf bilingual students for whom Swedish Sign Language is the primary language and written Swedish is the secondary language. Observations in schools for the deaf over 3 years show how everyday classroom interaction makes available and restricts opportunities for students to…

Children 8 to 10 years old were asked to improve a story they wrote, using computer-provided resource texts, resource texts on paper, or no resource texts. There were 18 children in each group, divided into 3 levels of reading ability. Regardless of ability, children using the computer produced more propositions during writing, and particularly…

Studied the use of the Repertory Grid in analyzing the personal constructs of 12 elementary school teachers in Spain regarding the characteristics of teachers with different levels of experience. Results reveal more similarities than differences about the principles of reform in Spanish education. Differences identified between experienced and…

Studied the learning conceptions of 27 students in their last year of elementary school (grade 6) in the Netherlands. Results show these students to have different beliefs about aspects of learning, resulting in three identifiable learning conceptions: restricted learning conception, functional learning conception, and developmental learning…

Studied the interpersonal interactions during group work by children designated by their peers as bullies, victims, and bystanders. Results for 117 Italian elementary school students suggest that cooperative group work had an impact on the expression of some emotions, although the tendency of victims to deny their feelings in comparison to the…

Studied the effects of three social contexts of learning (class context, school, and governance) on students' perceptions of their elementary school, an affective outcome of schooling, using data from 2,023 students from 103 schools in the Netherlands. Results show that students' perceptions differ in private religious and nonreligious schools and…

Reviews results of three studies of groups working with science simulations, focusing on gender effects on science learning. Results from pairs of adults, pairs of 15-year-olds, and larger groups of young children show that particular features of the learning experience are altered by the gender composition of groups. Discusses implications for…

Uses data on the oral communication of elementary school learning groups (459 Canadian students in 63 learning groups) to show how experience transcends subject-matter planning, and the paradoxical nature of planning for authentic experiences in education. Presents a framework for semiotic research into disciplinary didactics as a prototype…

Studied conditions conducive to conceptual growth and those conducive to procedural growth in student hypothesis testing in science by studying 216 Scottish elementary school students. Results suggest that problems can be overcome when students debate their conceptual knowledge and reach consensus and subject their consensual positions to…

Studied the social interaction of 7- and 9-year-olds working in the same or mixed gender pairs on language-based computer and noncomputer tasks. At both ages, mixed gender pairs showed more assertive and less transactive (collaborative) interaction than same gender pairs on both tasks. Discusses the mediational role of the computer and the social…

Findings from observations of 64 8- and 9-year olds show that the use of exploratory talk, talking in which joint reasoning is made explicit, can improve group reasoning and that this exploratory talk can be taught and can transfer between educational contexts. Teaching exploratory talk also improved results on a nonverbal reasoning test. (SLD)

Introduces a descriptive system of analysis of peer-group interaction that consists of a three-dimensional analysis of peer-group interaction by focusing on the functions of verbal interaction and the nature of cognitive processing and social processing. Twenty 12-year-old students from one Finnish classroom participated in the study. Empirical…

The development and promotion of self-regulatory strategies for comprehending and learning from text were studied in 19 9-year olds using cooperative learning. The experimental group exposed to repeated reading experiences within the cooperative learning teams showed marked development of strategies for dealing with texts in comparison with the…