The present study examines the effectiveness of incorporating worked examples with prompts for self-explanation into a middle school math textbook. Algebra 1 students (N = 75) completed an equation-solving unit with textbooks either containing the original practice problems or in which a portion of those problems were converted into a combination…

This study investigated the effects of creative-map instructional strategies on learning performance, learning motivation, and creativity in a junior high school geography class. A quasi-experimental approach was used to assess the treatment effects among 79 ninth graders, utilizing qualitative data including students' feedback, and four…

Guiding inquiry learning has been shown to increase knowledge gains. Yet, little is known about the effect of guidance on attitudes and behaviours, its interaction with student attributes, and transfer of impact once guidance is removed. We address these gaps in the context of an interactive Physics simulation on electric circuits…

The adaptive use of strategies, that is selecting a strategy which allows an efficient solution for a given problem, can be considered as an important individual ability relevant in various domains. Based on models of subjects' skills of adaptive use of strategies, two idealized instructional approaches are suggested to foster students in their…

This study follows two groups of students (67 in all) through the 3 years of their high school biology education and examines the development of their systems thinking--specifically their models of the human body as a system. Both groups were composed of biology majors, but the students in one group also participated in a PBLbased extension…

In two studies, we investigated the impact of instructors' different knowledge bases on the quality of their instructional explanations. In Study 1, we asked 20 mathematics teachers (with high pedagogical content knowledge, but lower content knowledge) and 15 mathematicians (with lower pedagogical content knowledge, but high content knowledge) to…