Open-ended learning environments (OELEs) allow students to freely interact with the content and to discover important principles and concepts of the learning domain on their own. However, only some students possess the necessary skills for efficient and effective exploration. Guidance in the form of targeted interventions or feedback therefore has…

Contextualized items have been widely used in science testing. Despite common use of item contexts, how the influence of a chosen context on the reliability and validity of the score inferences remains unclear. We focused on sequential cues of contextual information, referring to the order of events or descriptions presented in item contexts. We…

This manual for Junior High Environmental and Outdoor Education courses specifically addresses the special needs of adolescent students. A program development model is organized around six elements: (1) outdoor core; (2) personal and group development; (3) environmental core; (4) outdoor expeditions; (5) environmental investigations; and (6)…