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Given the strong relationships found between high-level learning strategies such as drawing and summarising, and student comprehension and performance, we have seen an increase in drawing-to-learn ...

In this commentary, we complement other constructive critiques of educational randomized control trials (RCTs) by calling attention to the commonly ignored role of context in causal mechanisms undergirding educational phenomena. We argue that evidence for the central role of context in causal mechanisms challenges the assumption that RCT findings can be uncritically generalized across settings. Anchoring our argument with an example from our own multistudy RCT project, we argue that the scientific pursuit of causal explanation should involve the rich description of contextualized causal effects. We further call for incorporating the evidence of the integral role of context in causal mechanisms into the meaning of “evidence-based practice,” with the implication that effective implementation of practice in a new setting must involve context-oriented, evidence-focused, design-based research that attends to the emergent, complex, and dynamic nature of educational contexts.

When reading scientific text, readers must draw inferences when the author does not make relations explicit; readers also need to pick up on causal relations that the author does make explicit. We ...

PurposeThis study explored implementation of the middle school concept (MSC) in Illinois middle-level schools, examining relationships between MSC implementation and schools' relative wealth, racial/ethnic composition, and achievement levels.Design/methodology/approachThis quantitative study utilized a sample of 137 Illinois middle-level schools, defined as containing any combination of grades 5–9, including at least two consecutive grade levels and grade 7. Principals completed an online survey, identifying levels of implementation of advisory, teaming with common planning time (CPT), and a composite of both advisory and teaming with CPT.FindingsSchools with high advisory implementation had significantly higher rates of Latinx enrollments. Schools with lower operating expenditures per pupil were significantly less likely to implement advisory or advisory and teaming. Teaming had a significant relationship with composite PARCC test scores, but there was no significant effect for advisory and no significant interaction of advisory and teaming together.Practical implicationsMSC is more expensive to implement, and affluent districts may have the financial means to absorb these costs. Although teaming facilitated improved state test scores, advisory programming did not result in significantly improved scores.Social implicationsLack of access to MSC programming in less affluent communities presents an equity issue for low-income students and students of color.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research examining underlying issues of race and poverty and their effects on academic achievement and the effectiveness of the MSC.

Drawing-to-learn is a specific learning/reading strategy studied across many domains. In response to gaps in our knowledge about drawing-to-learn, we conducted a systematic meta-analysis of the literature published since the influential 2005 Van Meter and Garner literature review. We analyzed the benefits of directed learner-generated visual representations such as sketching, drawing, or computer-assisted creation of a full or partial static image. Forty-one peer-reviewed articles were screened in, together with 9 dissertations and 2 other documents; published from 2005 to 2018, these included 53 studies and 166 effects based on 8111 participants. The overall effect of drawing-to-learn across all dependent variable types (factual, inferential, and transfer) and both types of effects—comparing different types of drawing and comparing drawing to non-drawing conditions—was a significant g = 0.69. The overall effect was significant but differed across outcomes (g = 0.85 for factual, g = 0.44 for inferential, and g = 0.22 for transfer). Analyses across 6 moderators are presented. Not only does the literature continue to show that drawing-to-learn is better than the status quo, but directed drawing improves factual as well as inferential and transfer learning. Finally, researchers have found ways to improve drawing-to-learn instruction so that it can be even more effective than the simple directive to make a drawing.

The Inference-Making and Reasoning in Biology (IMRB) measure is an assessment tool intended to 1) aid university personnel in advising students on course enrollment, 2) identify students in need of interventions to increase their reasoning skills and likelihood of completing STEM majors, 3) support instructors in determining growth in students’ reasoning skills, and 4) provide a measuring tool to gauge success of higher-education interventions intended to increase reasoning skills. Validity arguments for these four uses of the IMRB are provided by implementing a validity argument approach. This work exemplifies the advantages of framing validation studies within a validity argument framework.

Making inferences and reasoning with new scientific information is critical for successful performance in biology coursework. Thus, identifying students who are weak in these skills could allow the early provision of additional support and course placement recommendations to help students develop their reasoning abilities, leading to better performance and less attrition within biology courses. Researchers across universities partnered to develop a measure to assess students’ inference-making abilities in biology. We describe the development of the inference-making and reasoning in biology assessment (IMRB). The IMRB is a 15-item multiple-choice assessment that uses short paragraphs of content—from the most-used textbook—taught at the end of a semester of survey biology courses designed for science majors. Based on our research, when the IMRB is conducted at the beginning of a semester, it measures deductive reasoning with new biology information, is fair across various student groups, and is reliable. The IMRB can be used with or without SAT or ACT scores to place students into regular undergraduate introductory biology courses, to predict grades in such courses, and/or to identify students who may need extra support or remediation in reasoning with new biology information. The IMRB is available free of charge to interested faculty and researchers.

Reasoning skills have been clearly related to achievement in introductory undergraduate biology, a course with a high failure rate that may contribute to dropout of undergraduate STEM major...

Expectancy-value theory highlights the roles of students' expectancies, task values, and perceived costs in their motivation and achievement. While ample research has highlighted the positive associations of expectancy beliefs and task values with academic achievement, research on students' perceived costs is in its infancy. We investigated the temporal interrelations among expectancies, task values and different types of perceived cost, the role of these constructs in biology achievement, and the role of perceived costs as a moderator in the relations of expectancy beliefs to biology achievement. A cross-lagged path analysis of semester-long data from 234 undergraduate biology students pointed to variable relations among expectancies, task values, perceived costs, and biology achievement. For example, while early expectancy beliefs related to later attainment and interest value, early task values and perceived costs did not relate to later expectancy beliefs. Furthermore, early attainment value related to later effort and opportunity cost. Expectancy beliefs and effort and opportunity cost in biology were associated with final biology grade. Finally, effort cost moderated the relations between expectancy beliefs and students' final grades. These findings provide evidence for the dynamic relations among perceived costs, task values, and expectancy beliefs over a semester and point to the interplay between expectancies and perceived costs in their relation to academic achievement in science.

In this special issue, contributing authors consider work at the intersection of two relatively established lines of research: multi-source (e.g., multiple texts) comprehension and multi-modal (e.g., narrated video) comprehension. This is a challenging space in which to work, as there is great complexity in the theories and empirical base in each area. Commonalities and important differences across the two literature are highlighted, together with a set of criteria that any emerging theory of multi-source, multi-modal comprehension should account for: cognitive learning strategies and metacognitive monitoring, which may interact with media; affect and other individual differences; and task effects.

Students’ success in undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses requires effective studying behavior, but also the motivation to enact it. Promoting students’ achievement in STEM has commonly focused on either study strategies (cognitive) or motivational interventions; we hypothesized that combinations of these would be more effective. Using a learning management system (LMS) for delivery, we iteratively developed and tested the effect of different combinations of one of the four cognition-focused with one of the three motivation-focused intervention modules. Participants were 3,092 undergraduate introductory biology students tested in 10 studies at three universities over 4 years. They were randomly assigned to either a no-treatment control condition or one of the 17 conditions involving either single or combined intervention modules delivered over an entire semester. Course grades were provided by the instructor. We used meta-analytic techniques to capture the effect of students’ access to the interventions on grades, and to test whether differences across experiments changed the effect size for the interventions. Averaging across the studies, the intervention had an effect of g = .30. All 10 moderators were significant: Cognitive + Motivational versus either one alone, timely access to the intervention, iterative development phase, type of cognitive or type of motivation module, the specific cognitive-motivation combination, university, academic year, semester, first versus second semester of biology, and course content. We conclude that combined interventions delivered via an LMS can meaningfully improve undergraduate students’ course grades (corresponding to 6.6 percentage points on final course grade), with minimal extra work for instructors. However, these effects depended on a variety of contextual factors.

Media reports suggest the switch to online courses from COVID-19 has ‘demotivated’ undergraduates. Our semester-long study of motivation for biology was in progress when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. We analyze changes in student (N = 182) motivation from before and after the pandemic was first declared. Across variables, subgroups of students changed in adaptive and maladaptive ways, and some remained stable. Analyses by at-risk groups—female, historically under-represented in STEM, and first-generation college students—were conducted. In cross-tabulations, one significant difference was found by sex, and a number of adaptive and maladaptive differences by race and SES. Despite obvious burdens on low-SES groups, undergraduate motivation was affected positively for some and negatively for others; only some variables were related to intention to remain in STEM. Results suggest that decision-makers should avoid stereotyping students based on group membership, with regard to changes in motivation.

The high failure rate of students in “gateway” science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses has been a persistent problem for biology programs nationwide. Common wisdom contends that addressing this problem requires major curricular overhauls. While desirable, such large systematic changes are often expensive or impractical. We propose an alternative approach: supplementing the regular instruction with brief online modules targeting specific cognitive (learning) and motivational mechanisms. We conducted an intervention study to test the effects of different combinations of cognitive and motivational modules on undergraduate introductory biology students’ learning, motivation, achievement, and intentions to remain in science. Introductory biology students at three research universities were randomly assigned to a no-treatment control condition or one of several combinations of cognition motivation modules. In this article, we describe the modules that are easiest for instructors to integrate with existing course content: worked examples (demonstrations of biology problem solving) and relevance writing (brief open-ended writing assignments about connections of biology concepts to one’s life). Increased student engagement in these modules led to higher motivation, biology reasoning, and course grades. These findings support the effectiveness of delivering brief online supplemental modules on students’ success in introductory biology courses. This easily implemented intervention can utilize online tools such as Blackboard, Canvas, or Moodle and provides an option when major changes to course instruction are not practical.

Summary Four principles of cognitive science were used to make systematic revisions in middle school science instructional modules from two kinds of curriculum: one popular textbook series and one popular hands-on series (two modules each). Schools were randomly assigned to 1 of the 3 arms (cognitive science modifications with professional development, active control with professional development, or business-as-usual). Two cohorts of students were followed in each arm for each setting. There were significant benefits of the cognitive science intervention, but the nature of effects varied for the two settings and curricula. For the text-based curriculum, positive effects of cognitive science modifications were concentrated in classrooms with lower proportions of underrepresented minority students. For the hands-on curriculum, there were positive effects that were not linked to school composition. Participation in the active control did not significantly improve student learning. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

We investigate the strategies used by 64 advanced secondary mathematics students to identify whether a given pair of polynomial representations (graphs, tables, or equations) corresponded to the same function on an assessment of coordinating representations. Participants also completed assessments of domain-related knowledge and background skills. Cluster analysis of strategies by representation pair revealed patterns in the participants' strategy use. Two clusters were identifiable on tasks that required matching equations to graphs and graphs to tables. We identified overlap between these two clusters, suggesting that while the representation pair influenced strategy choice, there was also a general distinction between students who used more and less sophisticated strategies. However, students who used more sophisticated coordination strategies were similar to the others on measures of domain-specific knowledge or background skills. We consider implications for future investigations testing interventions to promote coordinating representations.

Spatial skills have been shown in various longitudinal studies to be related to multiple science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) achievement and retention. The specific nature of this relation has been probed in only a few domains, and has rarely been investigated for calculus, a critical topic in preparing students for and in STEM majors and careers. We gathered data on paper-and-pencil measures of spatial skills (mental rotation, paper folding, and hidden figures); calculus proficiency (conceptual knowledge and released Advanced Placement [AP] calculus items); coordinating graph, table, and algebraic representations (coordinating multiple representations); and basic graph/table skills. Regression analyses suggest that mental rotation is the best of the spatial predictors for scores on released AP calculus exam questions (β = 0.21), but that spatial skills are not a significant predictor of calculus conceptual knowledge. Proficiency in coordinating multiple representations is also a sig...

Learners frequently access multiple, illustrated texts on a single topic, but this kind of multi-text, multi-modal comprehension has been rarely studied. Undergraduates were presented with two sets of biology materials on shared topics, including both texts and captioned illustrations. Process data, including think-alouds and screen recordings of participants' attendance to different foci, were recorded. Both intra-textual (e.g., T1, T1) and inter-textual (e.g., T1, T2) navigation sequences and switches from texts to diagrams (e.g, T1, D1) were recorded and examined in relation to comprehension performance. Patterns in participants’ navigation across texts and illustrations were identified. Students who were higher-performing in the sample exhibited more intra-textual switches, suggestive of forming a page-specific mental model. For one text, inter-textual text-to-diagram switches were negatively associated with high-level strategies, and thus negatively associated with performance; inter-textual text-to-diagram switches might have indicated confusion. Participants appeared to be in the early stages of learning a complex set of MTMM comprehension skills.

We explored whether existing curricula can be adapted to increase students’ skills at comprehending and learning from diagrams using an intervention delivered by regular middle-school teachers in intact classrooms. Ninety-two teachers in three states implemented our modified materials over six curricular units from two publishers: Holt (a reading-focused curriculum) and Full Option Science System (FOSS) (an inquiry-focused curriculum). Results were compared between two interventions—one based on selected principles of cognitive science (cognitive-science-based) that included instruction in diagram comprehension and one providing professional development in science content only (content-only)—and a business-as-usual control. We analyze posttest items involving different degrees of reliance on diagrams to show how instruction in diagram comprehension can improve comprehension of diagrams during reasoning. At the classroom level, there were significant advantages of the cognitive-science-based intervention over both content-only and business-as-usual with large effect sizes in all FOSS units (d = 0.41–0.52), but only one Holt unit (d = 0.11). Analyses by type of diagram suggested these effects were largest for transfer to diagrams from an uninstructed domain. Further analyses of high-stakes state test scores available for the participants implementing the Holt units showed improved use of diagrams (d = 0.45–0.66). Results suggest that making sense of visualizations (diagrams) is not effortless and self-evident, but that students who receive supports for comprehending can improve their comprehension, and the learning can transfer to new domains.

Student cognition and motivation, as well as institutional policies, determine student course grades and retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. Regarding cognition, study skills relate to course grades, and grades relate to retention in STEM. Several aspects of motivation are related to both grades and retention in STEM: self-efficacy (self-confidence for completing assignments), continuing interest in learning more about the subject, and effort control (remaining focused on classes and studying). Students’ cognition and motivation are interdependent, and, furthermore, they play out in the context of multiple institutional policies, such as academic support centers, career counseling, financial aid policies, forced curving of course grades, course timing, and course registration policies. All of these interdependent factors can improve with targeted programs that complement each other. Some challenges for reform include instructor resistance to changing teaching and a lack of coordination, or even competing emphases, among university policies and resources, such as course scheduling, academic support, advising, career counseling, and financial aid.

Background/Context English language learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing segment of the K–12 student population in the United States, yet they encounter substantial problems entering higher education. The gap between ELLs and non-ELLs is particularly acute for four-year college access. Research has been largely silent on ELLs’ college advancement, and we know little about what inhibits ELLs’ college access. Purpose To examine the process of ELLs’ college planning in order to determine which stages of college planning present difficulties to ELLs and why. College planning is conceptualized as consisting of five milestones: (a) aspiring to college, (b) acquiring college qualifications, (c) graduating from high school, (d) applying to college, and (e) enrolling in college. Research Design Secondary data analysis of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Only students who participated in all of the first three waves (2002, 2004, and 2006) of data collection were included (N = 12,450). Students were divided into three language background groups: (a) ELLs, (b) English-proficient linguistic minority students (EPs), and (c) native speakers of English (NSs). We first compared the college-access patterns of the three language groups. We then mapped out each group's pathways through the milestones. Finally, we conducted multigroup analyses to examine whether and to what extent a different set of predictors shape the groups’ college pathways. Findings/Results It is the early stages of college planning (aspirations and college qualifications stages) that are particularly challenging to ELLs, such that the majority of ELLs never reach the later milestone of applying to a four-year college. Predictors known to matter significantly for the general population's college access are not all significant for ELLs. Conclusions/Recommendations In order to enable more ELLs to reach four-year colleges, we should make a targeted effort to support them in the early stages of college planning. Racial/ ethnic minority ELLs are particularly vulnerable and need more support. We also need to invest more effort into identifying the factors and conditions that specifically influence ELLs’ college planning.

There is growing evidence that targeted instruction can improve diagram comprehension, yet one of the skills identified in the diagram comprehension literature—coordinating multiple representations—has rarely been directly taught to students and tested as a classroom intervention. We created a Coordinating Multiple Representation (CMR) intervention that was an addition to an intervention focused on Conventions of Diagrams (COD) and tested their joint effects on diagram comprehension for near transfer (uninstructed biology diagrams), far transfer (uninstructed geology diagrams), and content learning (biology knowledge). The comparison group received instruction using a previously validated intervention that focused exclusively on COD. Participants were 9th–10th grade biology students (N = 158 from two schools), whose classes were randomly assigned to COD alone or COD + CMR conditions and studied with a pretest–posttest experimental design. Both groups showed significant growth in biology knowledge (d = .30...

In the world of 10 second to 3 minute videos, information is pressed into shorter time frames and fewer words. Images, specifically flow charts, can explain relationships of size, time, and cause and effect within a small space. Diagrams enhanced restudy and recall of biology concepts in 10th grade biology students, and even clinicians prefer flow charts for reviewing new guidelines. Flow charts and flow diagrams use both symbols and text to clarify detailed or complex concepts and relationships. We present 3 common uses for flowcharts and diagrams. Scientists, communicators, and teachers can use the seven basic conventions of diagrams, the tips, and the tools with examples for making diagrams that explain complex relationships and processes in a simple, engaging manner for peer-reviewed journals, presentations, and biology/chemistry education. To enhance student engagement, teachers and professors can incorporate flow charts into class by asking students to make a flow chart to describe the protocol for each laboratory session and to draw a flow diagram on a biological concept for a review paper. Effective diagram design helps all readers navigate diagrams and enables readers to comprehend and apply the displayed scientific concepts toward future biological and microbiological knowledge and research.

The study strategy of comparing-and-contrasting has been well validated for learning from text, but not from diagrams. As part of a semester-long study strategies intervention for undergraduate biology students, we created 4 short instructional videos demonstrating the strategy of comparing-and-contrasting within diagrams (CC DIA) and delivered these just before the first course exam. We hypothesized that this strategy would help students develop a deeper comprehension of the instructed biology content. Participants were 128 undergraduates in a 2nd semester introductory (molecular and cellular) biology course, who participated in exchange for extra course credit. Students who accessed our videos scored a significant 5.5% points higher on the first exam of the semester, compared to students in other conditions or non-viewers (d = .35). Our brief (approx. 10 min per week × 4 weeks) instruction in using diagrams to learn biology yielded significant gains in undergraduate achievement.

Coordination of multiple representations (CMR) is widely recognized as a critical skill in mathematics and is frequently demanded in reform calculus textbooks. However, little is known about the prevalence of coordination tasks in such textbooks. We coded 707 instances of CMR in a widely used reform calculus textbook and analyzed the distributions of coordination tasks by chapter and for the type of task demanded (perception vs. construction). Results suggest that different coordination tasks are used earlier and later in learning and for different topics, as well as for specific pedagogical and scaffolding purposes. For example, the algebra-to-text coordination task was more prevalent in the first chapter, suggesting that students are being eased into calculus content. By contrast, requests to construct graphs from algebraic expressions were emphasized in later chapters, suggesting that students are being pushed to think more conceptually about functions. Our nuanced look at coordination tasks in a reform textbook has implications for research in teaching and learning calculus.

Student epistemic preferences have been found to be important in student learning and achievement. The present study proposed a new conceptualization of student epistemic preferences in the epistemic match model, assessed the match between student epistemic beliefs about chemistry and their epistemic preferences, and, most importantly, examined how this epistemic match may be associated with chemistry course achievement. We adopted latent class analysis and found three distinct profiles of epistemic preferences based on the dimensions of simple and certain knowledge, attainable truth, and alternative knowledge claims. Students in Latent Class 3 (Moderate Preferences) demonstrated the closest match between chemistry epistemic beliefs and epistemic preferences, and had more students who obtained higher grades and fewer students who had lower grades in an introductory chemistry course compared to the other two classes. Students in Latent Classes 1 (All Preferred) and 2 (Alternative-Claim Disliked), however, demonstrated certain degrees of epistemic mismatch between chemistry epistemic beliefs and epistemic preferences, and had noticeably lower achievement in the chemistry course. The study findings highlight the importance of achieving a close match between epistemic beliefs and epistemic preferences for higher achievement in a subject domain.

This longitudinal study was designed to investigate the associations between changes in implicit theories of ability in biology and college students’ dropout from STEM majors. We modeled the one-year growth patterns of entity and incremental beliefs about ability in biology with 4 time points of self-reported data and two covariates—biology domain knowledge and inference making and gateway course grade, and predicted STEM dropout with the growth trajectories of implicit theories. Results indicated that students’ entity beliefs increased, while incremental beliefs decreased over time, which provides support for the changeability of implicit beliefs over a short period of time. The growth of incremental beliefs was directly associated with STEM dropout above and beyond biology course grade and biology domain knowledge and inference making. Low intercept and negative slope of incremental beliefs predicted leaving STEM majors; however, the decline of entity beliefs did not have significant effects on dropout. Interestingly, the effect of biology domain knowledge and inference making on STEM dropout was mediated by biology course grade and incremental beliefs. The findings imply the importance of monitoring changes in students’ implicit beliefs and gateway course achievement in order to better understand and promote STEM retention.

Van den Broek's landscape model explicitly posits sequences of moves during reading in real time. Two other models that implicitly describe sequences of processes during reading are tested in the present research. Coded think-aloud data from 24 undergraduate students reading scientific text were analysed with lag-sequential techniques to compare specific transitions and flexibility with transitions between students who gained much in learning from reading a passage (n = 11) and those who gained little (n = 13). Just before verbalising inferences, those who gained much verbalised vocabulary, background knowledge, and strategies significantly more than did those who gained little. Those who gained much showed more flexible patterns before verbalising strategies and vocabulary, but rigid patterns just before inferences, whereas those who gained little showed the opposite pattern. Results both support and point out weaknesses in contemporary theories of reading comprehension and may explain some results from classroom experimental work.

The current short-term longitudinal study investigated the role of college students’ identity development and motivational beliefs in predicting their chemistry achievement and intentions to leave science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors. We collected 4 waves of data over 1 semester from 363 diverse undergraduate STEM students enrolled in a chemistry lab course. The results of analyses that examined the reciprocal relations among the variables over time (i.e., cross-lagged path analysis) suggested that identity development that involved exploration (e.g., information-seeking, reflection) was positively related to students’ beliefs about their competence and value for the STEM major and negatively related to perceptions of effort cost (drawbacks associated with time and effort) for the major. Identity development that did not involve exploration was related to low competence beliefs and high perceptions of costs for the STEM major. Competence beliefs, values, and perceptions of cost for the major were dynamically related to chemistry achievement and to students’ intentions to leave the STEM major over the semester, with different kinds of cost perceptions (drawbacks associated with effort, lost opportunities, and stress and anxiety) relating differentially to students’ intentions. The results support the role of identity development in students’ motivation for a STEM major and address a gap in the literature regarding the role of perceived cost in students’ academic choices.

The authors tested whether students can be taught to better understand conventional representations in diagrams, photographs, and other visual representations in science textbooks. The authors developed a teacher-delivered, workbook-and-discussion–based classroom instructional method called Conventions of Diagrams (COD). The authors trained 1 experienced teacher to deliver COD to two 10th-grade biology classes (n = 31) and compared gains in diagram comprehension from COD to those from a business-as-usual control condition (n = 30) in 2 classrooms taught by the same teacher. Students in the COD condition showed statistically significantly greater growth in comprehension of literal and inferential biology diagrams. The control condition in some cases advantaged high-spatial, high-knowledge students, whereas the COD condition for the most part did not. Entries in the COD workbooks were analyzed for amount of student effort. Students with a combination of low pretest biology knowledge and low effort showed mu...

Can students be taught to better comprehend the diagrams in their textbooks? Can such teaching transfer to uninstructed diagrams in the same domain or even in a new domain? What methods work best for these goals? Building on previous research showing positive results compared to control groups in both laboratory studies and short-term interventions, the authors developed three 6-week-long classroom treatments and compared their effectiveness in a sample of 137 high school biology students. Treatments involved students generating explanations (Self-Expl), completing a diagram with graphic elements (SCD-Visual), or completing a diagram with text (SCD-Verbal). Treatments were both effective for literal and inferential biology diagram comprehension, but the Self-Expl treatment showed greater pre-posttest gains on inferential items and SCD-Visual showed greater gains on literal items. Far transfer to geoscience diagram comprehension was only found for SCD-Verbal. There were no gains on biology knowledge for SCD-Visual. Analyses of instructional materials and students' coded answers during the intervention suggest that Self-Expl and SCD-Verbal conditions fostered more effort and more inferences while learning than did SCD-Visual. Results are consistent with the emphasis on inference in Hegarty's model of diagram comprehension.

In laboratory studies, induced stereotype threat shows negative effects on academic performance and learning. Is the relation between stereotype threat and grades robust in naturalistic settings, specifically in introductory STEM courses? We gathered data on two new measures we term race and sex stereotype bias, which were administered four times over the course of introductory chemistry and biology courses for STEM majors (N = 1358). Patterns of growth for all stereotype bias measures showed a discontinuous pattern, with increases during each semester (fall and spring) and decreases between semesters. For all stereotype bias measures, sophomores scored significantly higher than freshmen, and juniors scored in between. For the sex stereotype bias measure, females scored significantly higher than males. There were no race or sex differences on slopes of growth; though groups began at different levels, all grew at the same rate. There was little relation between grades and stereotype bias when analyzed by race; Asian students showed the largest number of significant – albeit small – correlations (3) and Black students the fewest (none). Correlations between grades and sex stereotype bias were significant and negative – but small – only for males. Results support a point made by Steele in 1997 but neglected since then; stereotype threat may affect only a small sub-portion within stereotyped groups. We argue that variables other than stereotype threat might be better targets for research attempting to explain gaps in STEM achievement and retention.

Although English language learners (ELLs) are currently the fastestgrowing group among the school-age population in the United States, there is surprisingly little information on their participation in postsecondary education. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), a nationally representative sample of eighth graders who were followed for 12 years, we present one of the first national-level examinations of ELLs’ access to and degree of attainment in postsecondary education. Our analyses show that ELLs lag far behind both English-proficient linguistic minority students and monolingual English-speaking students in college access and attainment. Only one in eight ELLs in the NELS:88 study earned a bachelor’s degree, whereas one in four English-proficient linguistic minority students and one in three monolingual English speakers did. In addition, one in five ELLs was a high school dropout. Subsequent probit regressions reveal that a host of nonlinguistic factors, rather than the ELLs’ linguistic background per se, contributed to ELLs’ limited postsecondary education access and attainment. doi: 10.1002/tesq.49

A number of authors have presented data that challenge the validity of self-report of strategy use or choice of strategy. We created a multiple-choice measure of students’ strategy use based on the work of Kozminsky, E., and Kozminsky, L. (2001), and tested it with three samples as part of a series of studies testing the fit of the DIME model of reading comprehension. One study was conducted at the high school level (N = 175) and two at the undergraduate level (N = 185 and 737). Over the three studies with three different samples, we found good evidence for the internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity of this type of measure. Commonality analysis suggested that strategy use mainly makes a shared contribution to comprehension with other predictors, especially inference, and to some extent vocabulary, background knowledge, and word reading. The measure was relatively easy to construct and easy to administer to large numbers of students, and showed much higher evidence of concurrent validity than self-ratings of frequency of use of strategies.

Reading comprehension is strongly associated with academic achievement, including science achievement. A better understanding of reading comprehension processes in science text might hold promise for improving science achievement in the long run. We tested the fit of the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model of reading comprehension (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007) with 737 students in an introductory biology course required for majors. Participants completed multiple choice measures of biology-specific prior-topic knowledge, inference, reading strategy use, reading vocabulary, word reading fluency, and reading comprehension in small groups in our laboratory. Using structural equation modeling to test the fit of the DIME model to the data, we found excellent fit indices for all models. However, the original DIME model fit significantly worse than the measurement model, and a modified model that included a path from reading vocabulary to reading strategy use fit significantly better. Results from the modified model suggest that comprehension interventions for undergraduate students with biology majors might use preteaching to build topic knowledge. We discuss the need for future experimental studies to confirm the vocabulary-reading strategies link.

Ainsworth’s (2006) DeFT framework posits that different representations may lead learners to use different strategies. We wanted to investigate whether students use different strategies, and more broadly, different cognitive activities in diagrams vs. in running text. In order to do so, we collected think-aloud protocol and other measures from 91 beginning biology majors reading an 8-page passage from their own textbook which included seven complex diagrams. We coded the protocols for a wide range of cognitive activities, including strategy use, inference, background knowledge, vocabulary, and word reading. Comparisons of verbalizations while reading running text vs. reading diagrams showed that high-level cognitive activities—inferences and high-level strategy use—were used a higher proportion of the time when comprehending diagrams compared to when reading text. However, in running text vs. diagrams participants used a wider range of different individual cognitive activities (e.g., more different types of inferences). Our results suggest that instructors might consider teaching students how to draw inferences in both text and diagrams. They also show an interesting paradox that warrants further research—students often skipped over or superficially skimmed diagrams, but when they did read the diagrams they engaged in more high-level cognitive activity.

Students need to develop scientific literacy in order to participate fully as citizens, community members, and in the globalized economy. But what is the relationship between scientific literacy and reading literacy? Three international data sets from the Programme on International Student Assessment (PISA) were used to calculate correlations between scientific literacy and reading literacy for 15-year-old students. Mean correlations at the individual student level across countries were .840 for the PISA 2000 data set, .805 for the PISA 2003 data set, and .819 for the PISA 2006 data set. In all three data sets, this correlation varied among countries, and the reading-science relationship was weakest in countries with low country mean reading scores. Three possible interpretations are discussed, favoring the interpretation that knowledge and skills that drive higher reading comprehension also drive higher science achievement.

New literacies researchers have identified a core set of strategies for locating information, one of which is “reading a Web page to locate information that might be present there” (Leu et al. in: Rush, Eakle, Berger (eds) Secondary school reading and writing: What research reveals for classroom practices, 2007, p. 46). Do middle-school, high school, and undergraduate students (N = 51) differ in effectiveness at locating information within extended hypermedia? Students completed a pretest measure of knowledge about the circulatory system. They then gave verbal answers to 10 researcher-developed questions about the circulatory system, which they answered by searching the environment and thinking aloud about the task. Consistent with large-scale national and international studies, students were only moderately successful at locating information. Successfully locating information was significantly associated with having more prior knowledge, efficient searching, and giving better quality answers to the researcher-posed questions. It was also associated with specific strategies only at the level of individual questions. That is, the “ideal” strategy depended on the question and how the answer was phrased in the text. Implications of the results for teaching students how to search in hypermedia are offered.

We examined how self-regulated learning (SRL) and externally-facilitated self-regulated learning (ERL) differentially affected adolescents’ learning about the circulatory system while using hypermedia. A total of 128 middle-school and high school students with little prior knowledge of the topic were randomly assigned to either the SRL or ERL condition. Learners in the SRL condition regulated their own learning, while learners in the ERL condition had access to a human tutor who facilitated their self-regulated learning. We converged product (pretest-posttest shifts in students’ mental models and declarative knowledge measures) with process (think-aloud protocols) data to examine the effectiveness of self- versus externally-facilitated regulated learning. Findings revealed that learners in the ERL condition gained statistically significantly more declarative knowledge and that a greater number of participants in this condition displayed a more advanced mental model on the posttest. Verbal protocol data indicated that learners in the ERL condition regulated their learning by activating prior knowledge, engaging in several monitoring activities, deploying several effective strategies, and engaging in adaptive help-seeking. By contrast, learners in the SRL condition used ineffective strategies and engaged in fewer monitoring activities. Based on these findings, we present design principles for adaptive hypermedia learning environments, engineered to foster students’ self-regulated learning about complex and challenging science topics.

Proficient readers engage in a wide range of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and both developmental and classroom intervention researchers are in need of high-quality measures of strategy use. Several researchers have recently called into question the validity of the most common type of measures of strategy use in reading, self-report or introspective measures (i.e., the participant must report on his or her cognitive activity while not actually engaged in the activity). We administered three parallel strategy use measures to a sample of 30 ninth-grade students: a prospective self-report measure, a concurrent multiple-choice measure which required students to apply the strategies to specific passages, and a text on which we asked students to think aloud. We also collected two measures of reading comprehension—a standardized measure and free recall scores. Consistent with Veenman’s (2005) conclusions based on a literature review, the concurrent multiple-choice and think-aloud data were both significantly correlated with both of the comprehension scores and with each other, whereas the prospective self-report data had non-significant correlations with all of the other measures. We conclude by recommending concurrent measures for researchers who wish to study strategy use in reading comprehension.

A significant proportion of American high school students struggle with reading comprehension. Theoretical models of reading comprehension might help researchers understand these difficulties, because they can point to variables that make the largest contributions to comprehension. On the basis of an extensive review of the literature, we created a new model of reading comprehension, the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model. The model hypothesizes relationships among background knowledge, inferences, reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary, and word reading and addresses the direct and mediated effects of these 5 predictors on comprehension. The authors tested the fit of the model and 3 variations of the model to data from 175 students in 9th grade. The DIME model explained 66% of the variance in comprehension. Vocabulary and background knowledge made the largest contributions to comprehension, followed by inference, word reading, and strategies. Analyses of participants scoring below the 30th percentile on comprehension showed these students to have low scores on all of the measures. The authors suggest that vocabulary and background knowledge interventions might be the best way to begin improving the academic reading comprehension of students like those in the sample.