Prior studies showed that optimism has positive benefits for students in higher education. However, research indicates different types of optimism, including the unrealistic optimism associated with the illusion of control. The literature review showed a lack of research on the effect of the illusion of control among students in higher education.…

In the current article, we describe the development and validation of the Social Comparison Rumination Scale. This measured was developed as a supplement to existing social comparison measures and to enable us to determine its potential relevance to perfectionism and other personality constructs. The Social Comparison Rumination Scale (SCRS) is a…

This study aims to describe metacognitive interventions for students who experience suspension of sense-making when solving integration problems based on the characteristics of students' thinking. This research applied a qualitative research approach and provided essay tests followed by task-based interviews to classify students who experience…

Whiteboard animations have become very popular in recent years. They are mainly used in distance education, where learners can acquire knowledge individually and without the help of a teacher. However, there is little empirical evidence on how whiteboard animations should be designed to achieve learning-enhancing effects. Since the presentation of…

The task of higher education is twofold: (1) to prepare students to meet the expectations of the labor market; and (2) to create a learning environment and conditions so that as many students can meet the subject requirements as possible, the dropout rate should be the lowest possible. Input and continuous monitoring of students' transversal…

Uncertainty is an important and fundamental concept in physics education. Students are often first exposed to uncertainty in introductory labs, expand their knowledge across lab courses, and then are introduced to quantum mechanical uncertainty in upper-division courses. This study is part of a larger project evaluating student thinking about…

We investigated whether finger pointing can be used as a cognitive load self-management strategy when learning from split-attention examples. We expected that pointing would reduce cognitive load and enhance learning performance. In a guided self-management phase, 122 university students studied a split-attention example under three pointing…

Previous research indicates that episodic retrieval contributes to divergent creative thinking. However, this research has relied on standard laboratory tests of divergent creative thinking, such as generating creative uses for objects; it is unknown whether episodic retrieval also contributes to domain-specific forms of creativity. Here we start…

Memory representations can be stored in a passive state in a visual working memory (VWM) task. However, it remains unclear whether the representations stored in the passive state are prone to interference and decay. To explore this issue, we asked participants to successively remember two sets of memory items (M1 and M2) in three test manners: a…

Mind wandering is often defined as the phenomenon of one's attention drifting away from the current activity toward inner thoughts and feelings. In the laboratory, mind wandering is most frequently assessed with thought reports that are collected while people perform some ongoing activity. It is not clear, however, inasmuch the resulting…

College students are asked to make critical decisions about which academic major to choose and subsequently to make specific career decisions. Students come to college with a myriad of different skill sets, backgrounds, developmental levels, cognitive processes, familial support, and levels of self-efficacy that may influence how they make these…

In the current study, we focused on measuring the development of important professional attitudes, such as "compassion satisfaction" and "burnout." Students from four different colleges worked in teams to conceptualize innovative engineering products. During the ideation phase of their project, participants completed a…

We studied the role of discourse coherence relations on structure formulation in sentence production by examining whether a connective, an essential signal of coherence relations, modulates the tendency for speakers to reuse sentence structures (i.e., structural priming). We further examined three possible modulating factors: the type of…

While the right usage of technology brings a plethora of benefits, misusing technological devices and the Internet in an educational context can manifest in different behavioral tendencies. This ranges from growing addiction to technology and cyberbullying to technological anxiety and technostress. Yet, the effects of cyberloafing on students'…

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the level of students' academic integration in the physical environment of the classroom. Design/methodology/approach: This study used an experimental approach. The study sample consisted of 60 students, who were divided into an experimental group (n = 30) and a control group (n = 30) in two classrooms…