This study investigated how to improve the teaching of problem solving in a large Melbourne secondary school. Coaching was used to support and equip five teachers, some with limited experiences in teaching problem solving, with knowledge and strategies to build up students' problem solving and reasoning skills. The results showed increased…

This study examined the relationship between stress and sleep duration for adolescent females from affluent backgrounds. Participants were 218 students attending two independent single-sex secondary schools. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models (cross-sectional and longitudinal) were run to examine the association between stress and…

The aim of this study was to examine the role of social networking sites (SNSs) in early adolescents' social lives. First, we investigated the relation between SNS use and several aspects of early adolescents' social lives (i.e., friendship quality, bridging social capital, and bonding social capital). Second, we examined whether there are…

For pre-service teachers (PSTs) who have been exposed to traditional approaches, teacher education courses can be a revelatory experience in their development as educators. This study explores if Canadian upper elementary/lower secondary (grades 4-10) PSTs change their beliefs about mathematics teaching as a result of taking a mathematics methods…

The aim of this article is to explore the structure of social capital in peer networks and its relation to the unequal access of educational resources within mathematics classrooms. We hypothesise that learners can gain access to mathematics through friendship networks which provide more or less help from peers that might sustain (or curtail)…

The study explores how a complexity approach empowers science learning. A complexity approach represents systems as many interacting entities. The construct of micro-macro compatibility is introduced, the degree of similarity between behaviors at the micro- and macro-levels of the system. Seventh-grade students' learning about gases was studied…

Teachers make a difference for the outcome of their students in science classrooms. One focus in this context lies on teachers' professional knowledge. We describe this knowledge according to three domains, namely (1) content knowledge (CK), (2) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and (3) curricular knowledge (CuK). We hypothesise a positive…

Research on self-determination theory (SDT) has shown that positive learning outcomes accrue in classrooms that support students' needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Studies on what need supportive teaching entails in practice are, however, scarce. In the present study, we aimed to gain in-depth understanding of typical manifestations…

"INSPIRE" is an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant funded by the Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. "INSPIRE" provides an innovative integrated K-12 STEM pipeline approach focused on STEM course content and instructional redesign. The INSPIRE model was implemented in Cabarrus County…

We introduce a cognitive framework for measuring reading comprehension that includes the use of novel summary-writing tasks. We derive NLP features from the holistic rubric used to score the summaries written by students for such tasks and use them to design a preliminary, automated scoring system. Our results show that the automated approach…

This study examines the attitudes and the behavioural intentions of typically developing (TD) adolescents towards a hypothetical peer with Asperger syndrome (AS). Participants (N = 179, M age = 13.7 years) viewed two PowerPoint presentations one of a TD male target and one of a male target with AS. The target with AS was introduced either with…

The purpose of this study is to analyze scientific literacy levels relevant to science and technology classes among gifted students that participate in scientific activities at science and art centers. This study investigated whether there was a significant difference in scientific literacy levels among gifted students according to the areas of…

We examined instructional processes in classrooms where students with and without disabilities received mathematics instruction to understand the relationship among key instructional process variables and achievement as measured by interim and end-of-year summative assessments. Teachers (N = 78) completed instructional logs daily and administered…

On the basis of a validation study of a new test for assessing low-achieving adolescents' reading comprehension skills--the SALT-reading--we analyzed two issues relevant to the field of reading test development. Using the test results of 200 seventh graders, we examined the possibility of identifying reading comprehension subskills and the effects…

Peer support interventions have mostly neglected the domain specificity of intervention effects. In two studies, the present investigation examined the domain specificity of peer support interventions targeting specific domains of self-concept. In Study 1, participants ("n" = 50) who had received an academically oriented peer support…