The capacity to solve tasks that contain high concentrations of visual-spatial information, including graphs, maps and diagrams, is becoming increasingly important in educational contexts as well as everyday life. This research examined gender differences in the performance of students solving graphics tasks from the Graphical Languages in…

The professional plans, satisfaction levels, demographic characteristics, perceptions and motivations of different teacher types distinguished by cluster analysis were investigated among graduate-entry primary and secondary teacher education candidates (N=510) from three Australian universities in an ongoing longitudinal study. Participants…

The study examined associations between university teachers' experiences of academic leadership, their perceptions of a specific academic context and their approaches to teaching in a particular subject that was taught in that context. The sample consisted of 439 lecturers in Australian universities in four fields of study. Lecturers completed…

In this investigation young adolescent students (N=181) engaged in an interactive computer reading task. The aim was to explore sequences of students' affective responses to expository texts by identifying their character, intensity and their relationship with further text processing. Affective responses were measured using probes consisting of…

The study of relationships between action control, motivation control, perceptions of course directions, and students' goals for 92 Australian undergraduates revealed different patterns for direction and effort and changing patterns from task on-set to off-set. Overall higher levels of effort and performance appear to require positive appraisals…

A study of the processes by which 24 grade-12 Australian physics students brought order to their observations and practices shows that the phenomena students construct from their laboratory work (not always accurate) develop from connections among the embodied practices of language and physical action, their world, and social relations. (SLD)

Results from an experiment with 28 experimental and 28 matched control college students taking a 13-week computer science course support the potential of modeling and coaching students in metacognitive strategies to enhance learning. The instructional method had significant long-term and short-term effects on cognitive and affective learning…

Subjects forced to process redundant material or split their attention between multiple sources of information may encounter extraneous cognitive load. Results of 4 experiments involving 125 fourth graders in Sydney (Australia) provide evidence for the inadequacy of conventionally formatted instructional materials and emphasize debilitating…

Analysis of a writing lesson delivered to 22 children in their first year of school shows that instruction in grammar occurs without the use of a metalanguage for the concepts under instruction. Teacher control of knowledge through contingent question and answer is analyzed. (SLD)

Information from a study of experiences of 45 Australian university teachers supports a view of teaching that enables students to enter a field as practitioners. Alternative ways in which teachers see the content of their courses are described, with a focus on enriching students' experiences of the field. (SLD)

A cognitive education program applicable across many classroom settings was evaluated with 147 Australian students in grades 4 through 7 who were or were not exposed to the Process-Based Instruction (PBI) approach. Results indicate the positive effects of PBI on student achievement and student and teacher attitudes. (SLD)

Effects of a keyword learning strategy on immediate and delayed recall of foreign language vocabulary were studied with 40 female Australian high school students. Analyses show a significant and substantial advantage of keyword users immediately and later. (SLD)

The Cognitive Holding Power Questionnaire (J. Stevenson, 1990) measures the press for higher and lower order thinking in classroom environments. Results from 1203 Australian high school students show that it is the teacher, rather than other environmental aspects, who is central to the press for different kinds of thinking in the classroom. (SLD)

Reports research into the conceptions of mathematics, orientations to studying it, and experiences of learning it of 300 Australian first-year university students. Results suggest two qualitatively different experiences of learning mathematics. Differences in students' conceptions of mathematics were related to their experiences and their…

Two studies involving a total of 66 Australian high school students investigated the effects of training in the use of general strategies on the performance of high- and low-achieving students in trigonometry. The positive effects of management training were identified for both high- and low-achieving students. (SLD)