The "leaky pipeline" with regard to students' engagement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has triggered extensive research to understand and prevent students dropping out from STEM. To boost enrolment and interest in STEM fields, integrated STEM (iSTEM) education could be harnessed by providing students with…

Intuitive knowledge seems to influence human decision-making outside of consciousness and differs from deliberate cognitive and metacognitive processes. Intuitive knowledge can play an essential role in problem solving and may offer the initiation of subsequent learning processes. Scientific discovery learning with computer simulations leads to…

Findings from recent studies suggest that students' pathways into mathematics-related careers begin as early as middle school when students are forming lasting self-perceptions of their academic abilities. Middle school is also a time when students begin making choices about future coursework in math, science, and technology that will have…

This study's first purpose was to investigate effects of a fourth- and fifth-grade "next-generation" fraction intervention, which included six enhancements over a previously validated fraction intervention, designed to address career- and college-readiness standards. The study's second purpose was to assess effects of the next-generation…

In "Small Teaching K-8," a team of veteran educators bridges the gap between cognitive theory and the K-8 classroom environment, applying the same foundational research found in author James Lang's bestselling "Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning" to the elementary and middle school setting. Via clear…

Communicative self-efficacy serves as an important link between discussing controversial issues and civic engagement because confidence in one's discourse skills is important to managing conflicting perspectives and developing solutions to community-based problems. Freely available to schools, "Word Generation" is a cross-content…

This study's 1st purpose was to investigate effects of a 4th- and 5th-grade "next-generation" fraction intervention, which included 6 enhancements over a previously validated fraction intervention, designed to address Career- and College-Readiness standards. The next-generation intervention is referred to as "Super Solvers."…

Purpose: Adolescent females continue to face health consequences associated with risky sexual behaviors such as unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a gender-specific intervention targeted to early adolescent females. Method: This study used an intent to treat…

Previous research has linked inquiry-based science instruction (i.e., science instruction that engages students in doing science rather than just learning about science) with greater gains in student learning than text-book based methods (Vanosdall, Klentschy, Hedges & Weisbaum, 2007; Banilower, 2007; Ferguson 2009; Bredderman, 1983;…

Prior studies have not tested whether an instructional intervention aimed at improving metacognitive skills results in changes to student metacognition, motivation, learning, and future learning in the classroom. We examined whether a 6-hr intervention designed to teach the declarative and procedural components of planning, monitoring, and…

For the thirty-sixth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Anaheim, California. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…