Educational Research Review最新文献

Open inquiry is the fourth and highest level of an inquiry-based approach in science teaching and learning. Although previous research has highlighted several benefits of open inquiry, thus far, no studies have comprehensively reviewed its impacts using systematic and rigorous methodologies. Thus, the central aim of this review study was to develop a better understanding of the impacts of an open inquiry approach on students' learning in science. The search strategy was restricted to articles published in established scholarly databases (WOS, Scopus and ERIC), following the seven steps in conducting a systematic literature review process in educational research. As a result, 24 articles were extracted and qualified for inclusion in this review study. Finally, a thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the articles and five themes were generated: i) students' conceptual understanding, ii) students' motivation, iii) students' attitudes towards science, iv) students' scientific and thinking skills, and v) students' science literacy and other science-related skills. Although open inquiry positively impacted students' learning in science, the reviewed article also reported some challenges in its implementation, notably the need for classroom management, flexible teaching and learning, teacher-student interaction and teacher support. This review study provides a significant contribution to science education research, indicating that the highest level of an inquiry-based approach may not be the ‘best’ approach. However, this review offers a future opportunity for policymakers, teacher educators, science education academics, NGOs, science teachers, and other interested parties to promote inquiry pedagogy to improve students' learning in science.

The current meta-analysis aims at identifying the most effective interventions for students with Learning Disabilities (LD) in improving writing expression over the last 40 years. Specifically, the main purpose of this review was to evaluate the efficacy of interventions focused on writing and integrated reading and writing for students in Grades PreK-12. The review examined a total of 39 experimental and quasi-experimental studies to determine which interventions demonstrated greater effectiveness in enhancing student outcomes. An average effect size (ES) was calculated for all 44 interventions. Additionally, average effect sizes were calculated for 12 intervention categories: sentence combining instruction, pre-writing activities and strategy instruction, process writing without modeling, adding self-regulation to strategy instruction, feedback, no feedback, goal setting, no goal setting, peer tutoring, no peer tutoring, self-efficacy and no self-efficacy. The findings demonstrated that the interventions consistently improved students' writing quality, with the addition of self-regulation to strategy instruction proving highly effective. Moreover, it was found that multicomponent programs incorporating different practices demonstrated their effectiveness in enhancing written expression. Positive outcomes were obtained by implementing interventions into practice in small groups through systematically organized sessions and encouraging cooperation between researchers and educators.

Education neuroscience merges insights from education, psychology, and neuroscience to understand how the brain learns, processes information, and retains knowledge. While this field entails aspects like individual cognitive development and skill acquisition, it lacks clarity on the mechanisms for true social learning and teaching. To fill this gap, our article examines how the rapidly growing area of interpersonal educational neuroscience, which shifts the focus from single learners to learning interactions between individuals, is (and could be) contributing to a refined account for learning in social settings. We conducted a literature review of interpersonal neuroscience in relation to learning and instruction, through databases including Pubmed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. We found that interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS), within a widespread fronto-temporo-parietal network, between teachers and students and among students, can predict learning performance and is biased by characteristics of teaching. The functional implications of IBS, its challenges, and future opportunities for its applications to pedagogical practices are discussed.

De Jong et al. (2023) objected to the evidence presented by Zhang et al. (2022) to support their concerns about the unreserved acceptance and promotion of inquiry-based learning and problem solving in current policy documents related to the teaching of science. In their response, De Jong et al. (2023) reiterated their advocacy for inquiry approaches, arguing that an emphasis on a mixture of inquiry learning and explicit instruction is needed. The present article rebuts De Jong et al. (2023), in which we: 1) challenge their view of and approach to scientific methods in establishing the efficacy of different instructional approaches; 2) indicate that an underpinning theory to explain the cognitive machinery that drives inquiry-based instructional approaches is missing from their argument; and 3) address the empirical issues arising in their argument. We also highlight potential agreement with De Jong et al. (2023) on the essential role of explicit instruction and thus raise a call to the field to revise current science educational policies and standards to reflect such a role. Our agreements and disagreements advance the debate to a new focus concerning when and how inquiry-based learning and explicit instruction should be used and combined. While De Jong et al. (2023), in their theory-free paper, provided no answer to how explicit instruction and inquiry learning should be combined, we offer our suggestions based on evolutionary psychology and the expertise reversal effect from cognitive load theory.

Given the widespread concern on collaborative problem solving (CPS) skills, there has been an increasing interest in the last few years to explore how to assess them with digital technologies. This study systematically reviewed how CPS skills have been assessed with digital technologies in the literature. A total of 40 articles were reviewed to analyze specific computer-based assessment instruments of CPS skills from four perspectives: research context, theoretical model for assessment, assessment type, and reliability and validity evidence. The results indicate that most tests target a sample of less than 500 junior students. Nine theoretical models are employed for assessing CPS skills, most of which treat these skills as an explicit combination of social and cognitive skills and are applied to a limited range of participants' age levels, collaboration features, and team compositions. A total of 22 tests have been employed and fallen into four types, i.e., the ones with specific predefined messages in human-agent mode, and those with online chat box, videoconferencing, and face-to-face collaboration in human-human mode. Each type of these tests demonstrates great diversities in participants’ age levels, types of CPS task(s), team compositions, types of assessment data, and methods of data recording and scoring. A certain number of tests lack reliability and validity evidence. Our findings are expected to benefit relevant researchers and test developers in terms of providing suggestions for future research which include testing the applicability of theoretical models for assessing CPS skills across a wide range of assessment contexts. In addition, future researchers should improve the development, data processing, and report of those four types of computer-based assessment instruments of CPS skills through different approaches, respectively.

Each year, more students worldwide enter graduate school to complete their master's degree. A cornerstone of their education is the master's thesis. Respectively, master's thesis supervisors hold a key role in higher education teaching, yet no evidence-based overview currently exists of elements that make thesis supervision effective. Based on a systematic literature review, this study presents a summative framework of what is currently known about elements and their relationships that constitute effective master's thesis supervision, focusing on the interactions between individual students and supervisors. We develop an input-process-outcome framework based on 36 existing studies, identifying student and supervisor outcomes, characteristics of an effective student-supervisor relationship along with actions that students and supervisors can take to create and maintain it, along with student and supervisor characteristics that serve as critical inputs for an effective supervision process. We find that current research emphasizes the role of supervisor attitudes and actions in relation to the student-supervisor relationship, while future research is needed on student actions, supervisor learning over time, and contextual characteristics. Following our framework, we generate avenues for future research and summarize effective supervision practices in the dynamic and complex context of master's thesis supervision.

When used appropriately, non-significant p-values have the potential to further our understanding of what does not work in education, and why. When misinterpreted, they can trigger misguided conclusions, for example about the absence of an effect of an educational intervention, or about a difference in the efficacy of different interventions. We examined the frequency of non-significant p-values in recent volumes of peer-reviewed educational research journals. We also examined how frequently researchers misinterpret non-significance to imply the absence of an effect, or a difference to another significant effect. Within a random sample of 50 peer-reviewed articles, we found that of 528 statistically tested hypotheses, 253 (48%) were non-significant. Of these, 142 (56%) were erroneously interpreted to indicate the absence of an effect, and 59 (23%) to indicate a difference to another significant effect. For 97 (38%) of non-significant results, such misinterpretations were linked to potentially misguided implications for educational theory, practice, or policy. We outline valid ways for dealing with non-significant p-values to improve their utility for education, discussing potential reasons for these misinterpretations and implications for research.

There is a growing body of literature acknowledging peer feedback as a crucial learning practice in online settings. However, the literature is sparse and lacks an overall picture of the variety of key components for the successful implementation of peer feedback practices in online settings. To address this gap, we built our systematic literature review on the MISCA model, which is a well-known theoretical framework for evaluating feedback practices. This model outlines five components to evaluate feedback practices, including content, function, student characteristics, presentation, and source. Based on this model, we aim to present a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on online peer feedback practices in higher education, with a focus on the role of content, function, student characteristics, presentation, and source. A thorough search was conducted across three databases (Scopus, ERIC, and Web of Science), resulting in the analysis of 73 articles published between 2000 and 2022. The main results of this review indicate that cognitive feedback comments were the most frequently identified content in online peer feedback studies. Regarding function, most studies used peer feedback in function to improve students' task performance. Less than a quarter of the reviewed studies evaluated the role of individual student characteristics, while students’ ability level and gender were the most explored factors. Rubrics and training were the most frequently implemented presentation modes of the online peer feedback studies. Only six studies combined feedback from peers with feedback from other sources. Overall, our findings make a valuable contribution to the literature by offering a comprehensive overview of the recent research on key components that impact online peer feedback practices in higher education. They also illuminate several potential interrelations that influence the implementation and effectiveness of online peer feedback practices. These findings can inspire instructors, practitioners, and scholars to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of peer feedback and how to make better use of it, thus fostering the effectiveness of their educational practices.

Fostering proficient reading literacy among students has long been a central educational pursuit, considering that it is one of the most cognitively demanding skills to acquire. Technology that tailors learning experiences to fit students’ strengths and needs (i.e., personalized and adaptive learning; PAL) can be more effective than the traditional curricular approaches. However, the literature on PAL effectiveness presents an inconclusive assessment of its impact on student reading achievement, and a global synthesis has not been conducted. This meta-analysis sought to assess the degree for differences in effect estimates, and to explore reasons for the differences across a wider range of populations and interventions. Twenty-seven studies were reviewed and an effect size of g = 0.29 was found. Implications for future policy and practice are presented.

An increasing number of research groups worldwide use eye tracking to study the professional vision and visual expertise of pre-service and in-service teachers. These studies offer evidence about how teachers process complex visual information in classrooms. Focusing on this growing evidence, the present meta-analytic review (k = 98 studies) aims to systematically aggregate and integrate past eye-tracking research on teacher professional vision and teacher noticing. Four goals are addressed. First, we review the methodological characteristics of past eye-tracking studies in terms of their sample, stimulus, and eye movement characteristics. The results show that most studies use mobile eye-tracking devices in action or remote eye trackers with classroom videos on action; less frequently used are photographs and virtual classroom simulations. The average sample size of the reviewed studies is 13 in-service and 13 pre-service teachers per study, indicating the benefit of meta-analytic synthesis. Second, we meta-analyze expertise-related differences between experienced and inexperienced teachers in two frequently used eye movement measures—teacher gaze proportions and the Gini coefficient as a measure of teachers’ equal gaze distribution in the classroom. Results suggest that experienced teachers had higher gaze proportions on the students in the classroom than inexperienced teachers (g = 0.926) who, in turn, gazed more often on instructional material and other objects in the classroom. Experienced teachers distributed their gaze more evenly than inexperienced teachers between students in the classroom (g = 0.501). Third, we synthesize the results reported in eye-tracking research on the processes of teacher professional vision using the cognitive theory of visual expertise as an organizing framework; the review also discusses boundary conditions of eye-tracking research with regard to student, teacher, and instructional characteristics. Fourth, we review studies exploring the use of gaze replays and eye movement modeling examples as an instructional tool to support reflection in teacher education and teacher professional development.