The Effects of Motion Math: Bounce on Students’ Fraction Knowledge

National assessments suggest that many students do not display proficiency with fractions. Considering that time and materials are precious resources, many educators are looking to use technology to provide supplemental instruction with low demand on the instructor. The current study utilized a multiple-baseline design to examine the effects of the Motion Math: Bounce application on the fraction quantity comparison and number line placement skills of three fifth-grade students. Results indicate that Motion Math: Bounce improved the quantity comparison skills of all three participants and the number line skills of one participant. Additionally, all three participants made improvements from pre- to posttest on a measure of general fraction knowledge. Implications for future research and intervention implementation are discussed.     

The effects of various mastery criteria on student performance and attitude in a mastery-oriented course

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of various mastery criteria on student performance and attitude in a course in which mastery learning strategies were employed. Undergraduates in an introductory course in educational psychology were randomly assigned to one of three treatments—one in which mastery criteria gradually increased from 70% to 90%, a second in which mastery criteria gradually decreased from 90% to 70%, or a third in which mastery criteria remained constant at 80%. Results indicated that although the high mastery criterion (90%) had a positive effect on some aspects of quiz performance, it did not have an effect on final examination performance. Results also indicated that students preferred that mastery criteria remain constant during a semester. These findings, when examined in light of previous research, call into question some prior notions regarding the levels at which mastery criteria should be set.     

Learning Processes in Chemistry: Drawing Upon Cognitive Resources to Learn About the Particulate Structure of Matter

This article explores 11- to 16-year-old students' explanations for phenomena commonly studied in school chemistry from an inclusive cognitive resources or knowledge-in-pieces perspective that considers that student utterances may reflect the activation of knowledge elements at a range of levels of explicitness. We report 5 themes in student explanations that we consider to derive from implicit knowledge elements activated in cognition. Student thinking in chemistry has commonly been examined from a misconceptions or alternative conceptions/frameworks perspective, in which the focus has been on the status of learners' explicit conceptions. This approach has been valuable, but it fails to explain the origins or nature of the full range of alternative ideas reported. In physics education, the cognitive resources perspective has led to work to characterize implicit knowledge elements—described as phenomenological primitives (p-prims)—that provide learners with an intuitive sense of mechanism. School chemistry offers a complementary knowledge domain because of its focus on the nature of materials and its domination by theoretical models that explain observable phenomena in terms of emergent properties of complex ensembles of “quanticles” (molecules, ions, electrons, atoms, etc.) The themes reported in this study suggest a need to recognize primitive knowledge elements beyond those reported from physics education and suggest that some previously characterized p-prims may be better considered to derive from more broadly applicable intuitive knowledge elements.