We explore in this paper if automated scaffolding delivered via a pedagogical agent within a simulation can help students acquire data collection inquiry skills. Our initial analyses revealed that such scaffolding was effective for helping students who initially did not know two specific skills, designing controlled experiments and testing stated…

The aim of this research is to determine the effect of the different teaching methods, on seventh-grade students' academic achievement and scientific attitudes. The research was carried out using quasi-experimental methods. The research sample consisted of 84 seventh grade students studying in three different classes. One of these classes an…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of a dependent group contingency on eighth-grade students' heart rates. Participants were 18 male and female students. A multielement research design was used to examine the intervention effects. The intervention consisted of: (a) teacher explanation about effort; (b) students' suggestions to…

Visuals and graphics have been used for communicating complex ideas since 1786 when William Playfair first invented the line graph and bar chart. Graphs and charts are useful for interpretation and making sense of data. For instance, John Snow's scatter plot helped pinpoint the source of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854 and also changed…

Several studies found that direct instruction and task structuring can effectively promote children's ability to design unconfounded experiments. The present study examined whether the impact of these interventions extends to other scientific reasoning skills by comparing the inquiry activities of 55 fifth-graders randomly assigned to one of…

Most research on the middle school transition focuses on developmental and psychological changes around the age of the transition, and investigates or discusses the impact of such changes on academic performance, motivation and behavior in schools. In addition to intrapersonal developmental changes that middle-school students experience, they also…

Today's World is in period of rapid development of science and technology. There is science and technology education that not based on rote, practical on the basis of development in science and technology. Misconceptions are a major obstacle in order to take the desired efficiency. Because concepts that learned wrong obstacle attainment of right…

In recent years, the regression discontinuity design (RDD) has gained widespread recognition as a quasi-experimental method that when used correctly, can produce internally valid estimates of causal effects of a treatment, a program or an intervention (hereafter referred to as treatment effects). In an RDD study, subjects or groups of subjects…

Background: Since 1984, Students Taking a Right Stand (STARS) Nashville has implemented Student Assistance Programs (SAPs) in the middle Tennessee area, to include 14 counties and 16 school districts. STARS Nashville serves K-12 with a focus in middle and high schools. Methods: The current study reviewed studies that utilized quasi-experimental…

This paper presents a review of the literature on dropout prevention interventions for students with disabilities. A variety of search methods, including electronic library searches, hand searches of journals, and Internet searches were used to acquire the widest possible set of research studies. To be included in this review, the studies must…

The capacity of the field to conduct power analyses for group randomized trials (GRTs) of educational interventions has improved over the past decade (Authors, 2009). However, a power analysis depends on estimates of design parameters. Hence it is critical to build the empirical base of design parameters for GRTs across a variety of outcomes and…

This experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of a research-based intervention, schema-based instruction (SBI), on students' proportional problem solving. SBI emphasizes the underlying mathematical structure of problems, uses schematic diagrams to represent information in the problem text, provides explicit problem-solving and metacognitive…

This experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of a research-based intervention, schema-based instruction (SBI), on students' proportional problem solving. SBI emphasizes the underlying mathematical structure of problems, uses schematic diagrams to represent information in the problem text, provides explicit problem solving and metacognitive…

Cognitive development unfolds in many contexts, and one of the most important of these contexts is school. Thus, understanding the school context is critical for understanding development. This article discusses some of the reasons why cognitive developmental researchers might wish to conduct research in schools, describes how to get started…

This paper provides causal evidence to answer the question, "Does the application of a double dose of literacy instruction in middle school improve student performance on subsequent academic outcomes?" The focus of this paper is on an intervention where the second dose of literacy instruction uses research-based instructional strategies,…