It is well known that fraction knowledge is relevant for later success in mathematics. However, many students still face difficulties when dealing with fractions. Predictors of fraction knowledge have been widely examined. Systematizing "mathematical" predictors, whether their predictive contributions are direct or indirectly mediated…

When learning about fractions, teaching usually follows certain topics -- e.g. part of the whole, fraction equivalence, and size comparison. Not yet answered is whether students' conceptual and procedural knowledge of fractions is coherent between those topics. To answer this question, we performed a latent profile analysis of data from N = 1005…

The relation between prior knowledge and learning has been investigated in many studies. However, a recent meta-analysis showed that most of these studies suffered from serious methodological shortcomings, as they failed to account for knowledge growth over time, possible ceiling effects for learners with high prior knowledge, moderating effects…

Energy is a central concept across the sciences and an important goal of science education is to support all students so that they develop a full understanding of the energy concept. However, given the abstract and complex nature of the energy concept, only a few students develop an understanding so that they can use energy ideas to make sense of…

By complying with their "job", i.e., completing the tasks set for them by teachers, pupils develop their subject skills. They do this in a classroom setting where they can perceive each other regarding their abilities. Besides content learning, pupils, thus, also have to position themselves emotionally and action-practically towards the…

Vertebrate species knowledge, a key factor for conserving biodiversity, is a compulsory part of school curricula. This study evaluated the vertebrate species knowledge of sixth-grade German grammar school pupils (aged 11-13) to investigate the influence of socio-demographic factors (gender, size of hometown, mother tongue), personal expectations…

The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of self-generation in inquiry-based learning and to identify the role of feedback. While open-ended inquiry-based learning with a high degree of self-generation requirements has long been considered optimal for facilitating effective learning, its long-run effects have been critically challenged.…

Background: Education Standards highlight the importance of conceptual knowledge. Instructional tasks play a key role in biology instruction and offer learning opportunities for students. Tasks contain of a content and a demands part. Therefore, complexity and cognitive level are adequate variables to describe tasks and are assumed effective for…

Besides viewing knowledge about the nature of science (NOS) as important for its own value with respect to scientific literacy, an adequate understanding of NOS is expected to improve science content learning by fostering the ability to interrelate scientific concepts and, thus, coherently acquire scientific content knowledge. However, there is a…

This study investigated whether and, if so, how metacognitive knowledge can be assessed validly in students with special educational needs in a large-scale assessment like the German National Educational Panel Study. In total, 804 sixth-grade students including both regular school students attending the lowest track of secondary education…

One aim of environmental education is fostering sustainable environmental action. Some environmental behaviour models suggest that this can be accomplished in part by improving people's knowledge. Recent studies have identified a distinct, psychometrically supported environmental knowledge structure consisting of system, action-related and…

Constructive error handling is considered an important factor for individual learning processes. In a quasi-experimental study with Grades 6 to 9 students, we investigate effects on students' attitudes towards errors as learning opportunities in two conditions: an error-tolerant classroom culture, and the first condition along with additional…

Our study focuses on the correlation of concept map (CMap) structures and learning success tested with short answer tests, taking into particular account the complexity of the subject matter. Novice sixth grade students created CMaps about two subject matters of varying difficulty. The correlation of the complexity of CMaps with the post-test was…