Instructional Science

Productive classroom discussion has been shown to support student learning across academic domains. Facilitating successful discussion hinges on the teacher’s ability to make adept in-the-moment observations of various aspects of student talk and classroom dynamics. In two studies, we explore a pedagogical intervention using contrasting cases to support novice teachers in learning to notice key features of classroom discussion. Study 1 involves preservice teachers in a bilingual teaching methods course in a university-based credential program. Study 2 involves undergraduates in an education psychology course, many of whom are prospective teachers. Study participants engaged in analyzing transcript-based contrasting cases of discussion vignettes as they collaboratively developed guiding principles for effective class discussion. Data include pre- and post-instruction video noticing task reflections, principles identified, and transcribed partner discussions during the activity. Post-instruction, learners displayed increased student-centered noticing when watching videos of classroom discussions. Additionally, there was increased awareness of the absence of productive features or missed opportunities within the discourse. In this proof-of-concept set of studies, we explore the potential of contrasting cases-based activities to help prepare teachers for the complex task of orchestrating discussion by supporting them in learning to notice.

The content of argumentative essays is determined by multiple factors, but belief influences are understudied compared to topic knowledge and argument schema. We investigate how beliefs influence the inclusion of basic components in argumentative writing. A pre-screening survey identified believers and disbelievers in gun control effectiveness. In a subsequent laboratory session, subjects (N = 324) read a one-sided text that was either consistent or inconsistent with their beliefs. Subjects then reported their beliefs and wrote a 250-word argumentative essay explaining them. These essays were coded for the presence or absence of a claim, the number of reasons supporting the claim, the presence of a counterargument, text content, and other factors. 682 supplementary subjects provided approximately 10 ratings for each essay on several factors, including position, clarity, and consideration of both sides. Subjects who read a belief consistent text wrote essays that were more likely to contain a claim, more reasons, and text content. Subjects who read a belief inconsistent text were more likely to include an evaluative statement about the text and to consider both sides of the issue. Individual differences in belief change were related to the likelihood of stating a claim, the number of reasons, and likelihood of mentioning text content. Results suggest that beliefs influence the basic components of argumentation that are included in argumentative essays. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Because of the improvement-oriented nature of peer-feedback activities, students have to deal with errors (e.g., spelling and argumentation errors) when providing and processing peer-feedback on writing assignments. Despite the central role of errors in feedback activities, it is uncertain how students deal with errors and whether the dealing with errors is affected by interpersonal perceptions. Therefore, this study explores (1) whether cognitive sub-phases are distinguishable during the process of dealing with errors and (2) the extent to which dealing with errors is affected by interpersonal perceptions. Six dyads of Dutch 11th grade students provided and processed peer-feedback on argumentative texts while thinking-aloud, and they reflected on the processes in a post-interview. The think-aloud utterances and interviews were analyzed with a mixed-methods design, using quantitative content analyses, and qualitative thematic analyses. The dealing with errors during peer-feedback provision displayed two patterns: error identification either occurred simultaneously with the decoding and often any evaluation-related thoughts lacked, or error-identification occurred as a result of an interpreting/evaluating phase. Also during peer-feedback processing, two main patterns were observable: students either knew immediately whether they agreed with feedback, or they first had to study the feedback more thoroughly. Additionally, interpersonal perceptions seemed to affect most students implicitly during feedback provision, and most students explicitly during feedback processing. As such, this study provides empirical evidence for the existence of cognitive sub-phases in the process of dealing with errors during peer-feedback activities, and portrays how these activities may be affected by interpersonal perceptions.

As educational systems design and build new spaces aimed for learning in the digital age, small group configurations around large screens have become a highly popular spatial feature in classrooms and libraries. In this paper, we introduce the idea of intermediate indexing as occurring in the space between the knot of intertwined resources at the fine-grained level of interactions and the public knowledge building effort at the community level. Arguing that these intermediate processes occur in these configurations, we explored a classroom community that studied within a learning space designed to support knowledge building between individuals, small groups, and the community. In this paper, we report on our interaction analysis of a small group of students around a large screen as they negotiate a set of ideas that they want to make public to their community. The results of this study elucidate how collective monitoring of artifacts and documents, inclusive participation structures, and fluid turn-taking transitions in these configurations ultimately contribute to the knowledge building effort.

This study explored the use of an innovative instructional approach called Productive Failure (PF) to design an educational game and its support. The study then examined the effects of two different types of instruction—PF vs. Direct Instruction (DI)—on learning genetics and relevant mathematical knowledge in a Game-Based Learning (GBL) environment. One hundred fifty-seven Year 10 students from two high schools participated in two quasi-experimental studies. The participants were divided into two treatment groups: one group learned targeted concepts using PF with GBL (PF-GBL), while the other group learned the same concepts using DI with GBL (DI-GBL). The results of the first study indicated that the PF-GBL group showed significantly higher learning gains than the DI-GBL group on explanatory genetics knowledge. In the second study, no group difference was found between the PF-GBL group and the DI-GBL group on learning genetics and relevant mathematical knowledge. Implications of findings, limitations, and future research are discussed.

The present study examines the influence of individual competencies on knowledge integration in inter- and transdisciplinary work. Perspective taking, reflexivity, analogical reasoning, and tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty were investigated as core competencies for fostering knowledge integration. Additional hypotheses assumed that the positive effects are valid in the scientific and economic contexts and that individual competencies predict knowledge integration at different levels of expertise. To test the hypotheses, 421 participants, comprised of students (N = 165) and individuals working in science (N = 152) and economics (N = 104), answered questionnaires on knowledge integration and competencies of knowledge integration in an online survey. Further questions collected demographic data and inquired about experience and expertise in inter- and transdisciplinary work. The main result was that all postulated competencies positively related to knowledge integration. Analogical reasoning and perspective taking showed the strongest relationships with knowledge integration. Further results show that all competencies are positively related to knowledge integration in the student and expert sample, yet the interrelationships differ between the scientific and economic sample. This investigation into the competencies of knowledge integration contributes to the education of inter- and transdisciplinarians in academia and business practice.

Research suggests that troubleshooting activities that require students to reflect on teacher-crafted erroneous examples; i.e., erroneous solutions to problems that correspond to widespread naïve ideas, are beneficial to learning. One possible explanation to these beneficial effects is that troubleshooting activities encourage students to test the quality of their own naïve ideas, not only the ones driving the erroneous examples, thereby improving learning. Few studies have addressed this claim, and the results are inconsistent. These studies, however, were not designed to examine the extent to which students with different naïve ideas benefit from troubleshooting activities. Here, ten 9th grade classes took part in a field experimental study that applied a pre-post-test design after finishing a unit on exponents. Students in each class were randomly assigned to a troubleshooting (114 students) or a self-diagnosis activity (112 students). Self-diagnosis activities are considered to directly nudge students to examine the quality of their own naïve ideas by requiring them to reflect on their solutions. The troubleshooting and self-diagnosis activities both capitalized on the pre-test problems. Both groups increased their proficiency in exponents to a comparable extent from the pre-test to the immediate and the delayed post-test. Troubleshooting students with different naïve ideas detected the errors in the erroneous examples equally well, and their error detection significantly and positively correlated with their self-repair of their own naïve ideas. These findings suggest that all the students benefitted from troubleshooting activities, regardless of whether their own naïve ideas resembled the ones driving the erroneous examples or not.

The conceptualization of pre-service teachers’ knowledge integration typically involves the distinction of two types: first-order knowledge integration, which includes merging domain-specific knowledge entities into a common knowledge base, and second-order knowledge integration, which refers to the integrated (simultaneous) application of knowledge from diverse domains. This study investigates the effect of instructional prompts in the form of (a) relevance instructions and (b) guiding questions on promoting pre-service teachers’ first-order knowledge integration in a reading- and writing-based learning setting with three domain-specific study texts: one text each referring to content knowledge (CK), general pedagogical knowledge (PK), or pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK). Furthermore, the study explores whether pre-service teachers’ second-order knowledge integration depends on the degree to which they engaged in first-order knowledge integration when reading and writing about different domain-specific learning contents. The study applied a three parallel group experimental design. An analysis of essays written by N = 83 German language pre-service teachers indicated positive effects of both prompts on first-order knowledge integration. Moreover, a mediation analysis showed that pre-service teachers’ second-order knowledge integration is mediated by their first-order knowledge integration. The results are discussed and integrated into the existing body of research, practical implications are presented, and limitations of the study are explained.

This study investigates when and how awareness of knowledge gaps (AKG) manifests by observing the problem-solving phase of the educational approach known as problem-solving followed by instruction (PS-I). By comprehensively exploring cognitive and metacognitive process of learners during this phase and categorizing students’ judgements of knowledge structure in relation to AKG, it strengthens the underlying mechanisms of PS-I. With sixteen university students as participants, this study quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes conversations that take place during problem-solving activities. In the analysis, the authors suggest a total of ten cognitive and metacognitive events that occur and six judgements of knowledge structure in relation to AKG. The findings indicate that students spend most of their time solving the problem and seldom evaluate their thoughts; few express awareness of a knowledge gap. The authors discuss the relationships between the judgements of knowledge structure and consider when—and to what extent—students perceive their knowledge gaps. Lastly, the authors bring four learning behaviors (i.e., representing and reflecting on knowledge; recognizing and specifying knowledge gaps) with possible instructional strategies to promote each learning behavior.

Students’ strongly positive STEM interest and identity predict their future study and career choices in a STEM field. STEM education studies addressing multiple disciplines together are insufficient, as they have produced mixed findings and inadequate direction for advancing integrated STEM education. Self-determination theory (SDT) provides an understanding of motivational processes that influence the development of STEM interest and identity. This study investigated the effectiveness of a set of proposed teacher needs-supportive strategies on student STEM interest and identity development during a proposed 12-week SDT-based STEM program. Three hundred forty-two ninth grade students were randomly assigned to SDT and non-SDT groups during the program. The results support the application of SDT in integrated STEM learning and explain how supporting student needs affects their STEM interest and identity, which is crucial in interdisciplinary learning and the development of adolescent interest and identity in K–12. Moreover, the results contribute to SDT by adding a new dimension—integrated STEM interest and identity—and presenting more evidence on how the teacher’s needs-supportive strategies foster this dimension. These results have practical implications for advancing integrated STEM education in addition to new opportunities for using fewer resources to effectively foster student interest and identity in compulsory education.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether, and how, an asynchronous online learning community pedagogical approach can address students’ challenge of integrating disciplinary ideas into an interdisciplinary understanding. A quasi-experimental research design was conducted in which 51 undergraduate students were allocated into two groups who learned a similar asynchronous online interdisciplinary course. The two groups differed in the learning mode in which the courses were designed and taught: a learning community (LC) mode for the experimental group, versus an individual learning (IL) mode for the control group. We used a designated rubric to compare the quality of students’ interdisciplinary understanding, as expressed in a synthesis essay each student wrote. Findings show that students’ abilities to synthesize disciplinary ideas were significantly higher in the LC group. Since synthesis of disciplinary ideas is the goal and essence of interdisciplinarity, we view these findings as indicating a higher quality of interdisciplinary understanding among the LC mode students. This work demonstrates and delineates the potential of the LC approach to promote the development of interdisciplinary understanding in higher-education asynchronous online environments.

In this study, we investigated the impact of prompting on young students’ source consideration when watching videos with conflicting information. 262 French 7th graders were shown a series of videos in which two speakers (varying in credibility) took opposite stances on the topic of organic farming. The students were either given no prompts (control group), an indirect form of prompting (watching an instructional video on the benefits of sourcing before processing the material), a direct form of prompting (filling out source credibility rating scales during the processing of the material) or a combination of direct and indirect prompting. While the impact of the instructional video on students’ source consideration proved marginal, students who had to fill in the source credibility rating scales during the processing of the material remembered the identity of the speakers better (notably in delayed posttest), were more inclined to consider the expert interviewee as more convincing and to mention interviewees’ expertise to justify their judgement. These results suggest that prompting seventh graders to evaluate the credibility of the sources during the processing of the material through the completion of credibility rating scales is an efficient method to improve their consideration of source information when watching videos.

Computer-simulated experiments have been gaining popularity over hands-on experiments in science education, given the availability of technology and the trend of distance learning. Past studies have focused primarily on comparing the learning outcomes and user experiences of the two experiment modes. In this study, we used an eye tracker to investigate the learning processes involved in manipulating hands-on and computer-simulated experiments, and the effect of prior knowledge and experiment mode on eye movements. A total of 105 undergraduates completed either mode of experiment to learn about pulley mechanics. Participants were asked to read relevant concepts before conducting the experiments to ensure they had basic knowledge about the subject matter. Results showed that the learning outcome of experimentation was affected by prior knowledge but not experiment mode. As for eye movements, the two experiment workstations were divided into nine functional regions. The findings revealed that eye movements in most regions were affected by the experiment mode, but not prior knowledge. The simulation group had shorter total fixation durations and smaller pupil sizes than the hands-on group, implying a lower cognitive load in learning in computer-simulated experiments. Lag sequential analysis and entropy analysis were conducted on cross-regional fixation transitions. The results revealed that participants in hands-on experiments tended to make more diversified fixation transitions across regions, whereas those in simulated experiments showed a higher level of concentration in the spatial pattern of fixation transitions. While sequential analysis offers insights into important fixation transitions on a regional level, entropy analysis allows for a more macro perspective on the overall transition distribution and facilitates conventional statistical modeling that takes individual differences into account.

This present study examines the psycho-emotional and psychophysiological effects that variations in the tempo of background music have on learners who are completing reading comprehension tests while being monitored used multi-modal computer technology. Results of seventy-four (N = 74) participants indicated that listening to fast tempo music (150 bpm) predicted lower reading comprehension scores, increased emotional expressions of fear, joy and contempt, and higher skin conductance responses (SCRs). Results indicated that participants were more likely to produce higher scores while listening to slow tempo music (110 bpm), but such findings were not connected to significant differences in facial emotion expressions or psychophysiological responses. Contrasting these were control/no-music conditions in which participants exhibited moderated scores. Results from the fast-tempo condition can possibly be attributed in part to an affective valence of emotions and psychophysiological responses, as the multimodal data suggests that a combined regulatory mechanism may be at play while engaged in a learning task. This paper raises several questions regarding the use and effects of background music in performance-based learning settings and the role of affective-stimuli on cognitive regulation.

Knowledge Building principles such as real ideas, authentic problems; epistemic agency; and collective responsibility for advancement of community knowledge convey ways in which Knowledge Building mirrors work in knowledge-creating communities. Previous studies suggest Metadiscourse—discourse about discourse—helps sustain and improve community knowledge. Do students’ emotions differ during metadiscourse compared to other discourse contexts? Is metadiscourse even possible in early elementary grades? If so, what emotions are associated with discourse moves requiring high-level reflection on prior discourse? Is it possible that such reflection engenders positive emotions required for sustained creative work with ideas? To address these issues, the authors engaged 22 grade 2 students (7 years old) in monthly metadiscourse sessions over four months, during which they discussed how their ideas changed, what they still wondered about, and what ideas they wanted to pursue. Video recordings of face-to-face sessions, online Knowledge Forum notes, students’ interviews, teacher’s reflections, and field notes were analyzed using discourse analysis, multi-faceted coding, and correlation analysis. The authors examined how students’ emotions and discourse moves differ in Knowledge Building discourse and metadiscourse and correlations between emotions and different discourse moves. The results show: (1) greater levels of enjoyment, reflection on previous ideas, and proposals for new directions for inquiry during metadiscourse sessions; (2) confidence positively associated with explanations and proposals for new directions for inquiry; (3) positive emotions associated with increasingly challenging cognitive work. The relationships between early elementary-grade students’ emotions and cognition during Knowledge Building is an underdeveloped area of investigation; in an effort to guide future research a model for regulating emotions in Knowledge Building is presented.

Relying on multiple documents to answer questions is becoming common for both academic and personal inquiry tasks. These tasks often require students to explain phenomena by taking various causal factors that are mentioned separately in different documents and integrating them into a coherent multi-causal explanation of some phenomena. However, inquiry questions may not make this requirement explicit and may instead simply ask students to explain why the phenomenon occurs. This paper explores an Activity Model Hypothesis that posits students lack knowledge that their explanation should be multi-causal and how to engage in the kind of thinking needed to construct such an explanation. This experiment, conducted on a sample of eigth grade students, manipulated whether students received a short 10-min lesson on the nature of scientific explanations and multi-causal reasoning. Students who received this causal chain lesson wrote essays that were more causally complex and integrated, and subsequently performed better on an inference verification test, than students who did not receive the lesson. These results point to relatively simple changes to instructions that can provide the support students need for successful multiple-document comprehension.

Creativity is a valuable skill for instructional designers. However, few studies have researched creativity in instructional design (ID) graduate courses. Future professionals' creative thinking is necessary to address societal, technological, and economic challenges. Developing creative thinking in novice instructional designers could allow them to generate creative solutions to ill-structured problems in real-world contexts. This multiple case study investigated the extent to which the nine core courses in an online instructional design master’s program encouraged creativity. We conducted a document analysis of course materials for each course, to analyze whether creativity indicators derived from creativity literature were present. Subsequently, a cross-case synthesis was used to identify patterns across the cases. Semi-structured interviews of the lead course instructors were conducted to evaluate the extent to which they deliberately included creativity concepts into the course design process. Results indicated core courses include learning activities and instructional strategies with the potential to foster creativity. However, explicit references mentioning creativity or being creative were only found in three courses. Lead instructors considered creativity an important aspect of teaching and learning and a concept that needs to be further developed and discussed in ID education. Implications for instructional design education are discussed.

Teachers form expectations that can influence their students’ performance, and there are a variety of ways these expectations can be communicated. In the current study, we tested a novel method for communicating expectations via examples of student work—examples that contain basic, entry-level work and communicate low, but manageable expectations or examples that contain complex, advanced-level work and communicate high and challenging expectations. Across three semesters, 91 college students in a data management course completed a class assignment that involved exploratory coding activities. Prior to the assignment, students were randomly assigned to view basic or advanced examples of student work. Students assigned to the advanced-examples condition reported higher perceptions of task difficulty and frustration, but they also exhibited higher levels of performance in terms of the complexity of their own work. Results suggest that setting challenging expectations can create a desirable difficulty that ultimately benefits students’ performance in an authentic learning environment.