A central goal of the learning sciences is to discover principles that determine the optimal amount of instructional assistance to support robust learning (Koedinger & Aleven, 2007). We examined learning outcomes from providing and withholding stepwise instructional explanations as students studied worked examples and solved physics problems. We…

Developing fluency and flexibility in mathematics is a key goal of upper primary schooling, however, while fluency can be developed with practice, designing activities that support the development of flexibility is more difficult. Drawing on concepts of adaptive expertise, we developed a task for a multi-touch classroom, NumberNet, that aimed to…

This study investigated how to teach perceptual tasks, that is, classifying fish locomotion, through eye movement modeling examples (EMME). EMME consisted of a replay of eye movements of a didactically behaving domain expert (model), which had been recorded while he executed the task, superimposed onto the video stimulus. Seventy-five students…

Students are frequently presented with novel visualizations introducing scientific concepts and processes normally unobservable to the naked eye. Despite being unfamiliar, students are expected to understand and employ the visualizations to solve problems. Domain experts exhibit more competency than novices when using complex visualizations, but…

Can students be taught to better comprehend the diagrams in their textbooks? Can such teaching transfer to uninstructed diagrams in the same domain or even in a new domain? What methods work best for these goals? Building on previous research showing positive results compared to control groups in both laboratory studies and short-term…

Plausibility is a central but under-examined topic in conceptual change research. Climate change is an important socio-scientific topic; however, many view human-induced climate change as implausible. When learning about climate change, students need to make plausibility judgments but they may not be sufficiently critical or reflective. The…

Theories of psychology and mathematics education recommend two instructional approaches to develop students' mental representations of number: The "exact" approach focuses on the development of exact representations of organized dot patterns; the "approximate" approach focuses on the approximate representation of analogue magnitudes. This study…

The commentary discusses phenomena highlighted in the studies of the special issue such as the hypercorrection effect, overconfidence, and the efficiency of interventions designed to increase monitoring accuracy. The discussion is based on a broader theoretical framework of self-regulation of learning that stresses the inferential character of…

Although there is abundant experimental metamemory research on the relation between students' monitoring, regulation of learning, and learning outcomes, relatively little of this work has influenced educational research and practice. Metamemory research, traditionally based on experimental paradigms from cognitive psychology, can potentially…

This study investigated the effects of feedback providing improvement strategies and a reflection assignment on students' writing motivation, process, and performance. Students in the experimental feedback condition (n = 41) received feedback including improvement strategies, whereas students in the control feedback condition (n = 41) received…

This study examined whether and why assigning children to a segmented inquiry task makes their investigations more productive. Sixty-one upper elementary-school pupils engaged in a simulation-based inquiry assignment either received a multivariable inquiry task (n = 21), a segmented version of this task that addressed the variables in successive…

Recent studies have suggested that educators should avoid concrete instantiations when the goal is to promote transfer. However, concrete instantiations may benefit transfer in the long run, particularly if they are "faded" into more abstract instantiations. Undergraduates were randomly assigned to learn a mathematical concept in one of three…

The purpose of the present research was to advance the development of knowledge regarding social aspects of self-regulated learning (SRL). The study had the objective of exploring the occurrence of self and social aspects of regulation during collaborative activities within regular primary science classes. Through a multiple case study approach, 8…

Support for children with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms is increasingly provided by teaching assistants (TAs). They often have a direct pedagogical role, taking responsibility for instruction in mathematics. The quality of TAs' oral skills is crucial for learning but has rarely been researched. Using conversation analysis, this…

In many studies of class size effects, teacher characteristics are missing, even though many argue it is not class size that is important but teacher quality. In the present study teachers' effectiveness on the learning progress was assessed while teaching a unit with predefined learning objectives. To measure adaptive teaching competency a…