College faculty often struggle with getting their students to read assigned materials. Even if students do read, they may not read closely or critically. Not only does the lack of effective reading undermine understanding, but it also hampers class discussions and engagement. To promote close and critical reading in a required, upper-division…

Background: The "Trickle-Down Engagement Model" posits that instructor engagement promotes student engagement which, in turn, has positive implications for student learning. Objective: Our goal was to provide evidence-based practical recommendations for instructors to communicate their engagement with course material to students,…

In research practice, it is common to measure cognitive load after learning using self-report scales. This approach can be considered risky because it is unclear on what basis learners assess cognitive load, particularly when the learning material contains varying levels of complexity. This raises questions that have yet to be answered by…

Globalisation has increased cultural diversity in Chinese higher education, highlighting needs for intercultural competence development. However, suitable China-centric resources are lacking. This study evaluates intercultural learning materials developed by the RICH-Ed project, an intercultural communication textbook grounded in critical social…

Rapid advancements in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have afforded numerous variations to traditional chemistry curricula where pedagogical strategies that have been employed have assumed "one-size-fits-all". The translation of print-based instructional resources into multimodal online and digital forms enables greater…

This study aims to: Produce teaching materials in the form of microbiology e-books based on research results on the isolation of styrofoam degrading soil bacteria. Testing the effect of using e-books on improving students' science process skills. The e-book preparation method refers to the Lee and Owens development model and is implemented in…

Trends about lay material quality suggest most college/university students enrolled in kinesiology programs are not taught about readability issues. Such trends are in diametric opposition to future graduates' moral and legal mandate to communicate clearly (e.g., the 2010 U.S. "Plain Writing Act"). Numerous leaders in kinesiology have…

Qualified and compatible teaching materials are one of the most economical and practical instruments for developing critical thinking skills and scientific attitudes. This study aims to obtain a valid and effective Pancasila and Civic Education Basic Concept teaching material design to improve students' critical thinking skills and scientific…

Background: The debate on using concrete versus abstract materials in learning mathematics has been longstanding. For decades, research has focused on the physical characteristics of materials when defining them as concrete or abstract. Aims: This study extends the field by proposing a two-dimensional classification, which defines materials as…

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a debiasing-based approach to assessing the learning materials in problem-based learning (PBL) environments. Background: Research in cognitive debiasing suggests nine debiasing strategies improve decision-making. Given the large number of decisions made in semester-long,…

This study explores calculus students' opportunities to learn the concepts of integral by examining one mathematician's videotaped lessons and the textbook. Results show that both lessons and the textbook introduce important cognitive resources briefly and focus on other units of knowledge. Implications to these results are also discussed.

The split-attention effect posits that learning outcomes are negatively impacted when interrelated text and graphics are spatially segregated rather than cohesively integrated. This study explored how the instructional material's presentation size influences the manifestation of the split-attention effect. Based on cognitive load theory and…

This study investigated the impact of teaching materials developed using the reconceptualized family resemblance approach to the nature of science (RFN) on pre-service chemistry teachers views about the nature of science (NOS). The materials were based on the book "Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life" by…

Purpose: This article presented the results of studies that examined the appropriateness of the content, readability of printed learning materials and the effectiveness of external resources in ecology course offered at Universitas Terbuka. To integrate external resources, links to their websites were provided in the printed materials.…

E-learning has become an increasingly popular mode of teaching college students, including students in the field of kinesiology. With the rise of e-learning, it is important to examine and understand specific components of online learning, such as educational podcasts. Educational podcasts are podcasts that are developed specifically for learning…