Advancing future primary teachers' engagement in science inquiry learning. Australia's challenges in regard to scientific literacy and growth of student enrolments in science need to be addressed at multiple levels, starting with the preparation of future primary teachers. Promoting children's early interest in inquiry-based science is essential, yet a challenge for many teachers. This project examines the complex and dynamic interplay of cognitive, metacognitive and emotional processes in futur ....Advancing future primary teachers' engagement in science inquiry learning. Australia's challenges in regard to scientific literacy and growth of student enrolments in science need to be addressed at multiple levels, starting with the preparation of future primary teachers. Promoting children's early interest in inquiry-based science is essential, yet a challenge for many teachers. This project examines the complex and dynamic interplay of cognitive, metacognitive and emotional processes in future primary teachers' engagement in collaborative inquiry-based science activities. A comprehensive intervention based on these insights aims to determine how scaffolding productive engagement can improve the quality of primary teachers' preparation for inquiry-based science.Read moreRead less
Rethinking higher education persistence. This project aims to address the issue of early departure from university. Many students leave higher education and disproportionate numbers are from educationally disadvantaged groups, including first-in-family learners. Too often, the individual learner is 'blamed' for this departure and perceived as deficit in necessary knowledge. This project extends previous research into how first-in-family students manage and engage with higher education. Expected ....Rethinking higher education persistence. This project aims to address the issue of early departure from university. Many students leave higher education and disproportionate numbers are from educationally disadvantaged groups, including first-in-family learners. Too often, the individual learner is 'blamed' for this departure and perceived as deficit in necessary knowledge. This project extends previous research into how first-in-family students manage and engage with higher education. Expected outcomes include knowledge about university persistence behaviours and a capabilities informed framework to design and implement future retention strategies.Read moreRead less
Uncovering the processes underlying human category learning. There is a pervasive belief that complex tasks can somehow be learned via a 'smart' implicit or procedural learning mechanism, which operates independently of memory and attention. This idea has important implications for our understanding of cognition. If true, there seems little point in providing explicit instruction in such tasks, and efforts to do so are, at best, wasted time and, at worst, detrimental to the learning process. Th ....Uncovering the processes underlying human category learning. There is a pervasive belief that complex tasks can somehow be learned via a 'smart' implicit or procedural learning mechanism, which operates independently of memory and attention. This idea has important implications for our understanding of cognition. If true, there seems little point in providing explicit instruction in such tasks, and efforts to do so are, at best, wasted time and, at worst, detrimental to the learning process. This project will provide much-needed scrutiny of this idea and will help not only to re-orient our understanding of how we deal with complex information, but will also highlight issues about data interpretation that are fundamental for the research and wider communities.Read moreRead less
Binding in working memory. Cross-modal binding?the integration of verbal and spatial features of events?is central to human cognition. However, it has been neglected in the study of working memory, where the dominant theoretical framework includes separate subsystems for the retention of verbal and spatial information. Using novel paradigms involving the concurrent auditory presentation of verbal and spatial information, the proposed research is directed at discovering (1) the fundamental chara ....Binding in working memory. Cross-modal binding?the integration of verbal and spatial features of events?is central to human cognition. However, it has been neglected in the study of working memory, where the dominant theoretical framework includes separate subsystems for the retention of verbal and spatial information. Using novel paradigms involving the concurrent auditory presentation of verbal and spatial information, the proposed research is directed at discovering (1) the fundamental characteristics of binding, and (2) the extent to which benchmark effects previously identified with a particular modality are ?inherited? by the other modality under conditions conducive to binding. Outcomes of the research will provide important constraints on the development of theories of working memory. In addition, the research will develop paradigms that have potentially important applications to clinical psychology, where diverse forms of psychopathology have been linked to deficits in binding.Read moreRead less
The role of retrieval cues when remembering over the short term. This project has two principal benefits: A basic scientific outcome concerning the development of a cue-driven memory model and an applied outcome that can inform the design of language learning tools. A core assumption proposed to explain short-term memory performance is that an event's salience affects its memorability. To date however, this salience dimension has escaped experimental vigour. This project examines the conditions ....The role of retrieval cues when remembering over the short term. This project has two principal benefits: A basic scientific outcome concerning the development of a cue-driven memory model and an applied outcome that can inform the design of language learning tools. A core assumption proposed to explain short-term memory performance is that an event's salience affects its memorability. To date however, this salience dimension has escaped experimental vigour. This project examines the conditions under which some events are perceived to be more salient than others. In addition, by determining when, and which cues are more salient, the project can inform future design of language learning tools (e.g., interactive memory games). Read moreRead less
Memory And Time. What could be simpler than remembering a few items, such as the digits in a phone number, for a brief time in the right order? Notwithstanding its simplicity, this serial recall task is essential for sophisticated human abilities such as vocabulary acquisition. This project investigates whether chronological time is a causal variable in short-term memory, as some?but by no means all?theorists assume. Experiments will manipulate time between items at study and retrieval using nov ....Memory And Time. What could be simpler than remembering a few items, such as the digits in a phone number, for a brief time in the right order? Notwithstanding its simplicity, this serial recall task is essential for sophisticated human abilities such as vocabulary acquisition. This project investigates whether chronological time is a causal variable in short-term memory, as some?but by no means all?theorists assume. Experiments will manipulate time between items at study and retrieval using novel techniques, and thus observe the effect of time on memory. Computational models of psychological time will be developed to better predict memory performance.Read moreRead less
The roles of scientific diagrams in contributing to science achievement and conceptual change. The project is designed to develop a body of research that facilitates excellence in teaching and in learning scientific diagrams in secondary school science. Benefits will include the dissemination of effective pedagogical strategies and improved science achievement measured by conceptual change from both cognitive and affective perspectives.
Categorization and Working Memory: Bridging two Pillars of Cognition. Categorization is a fundamental cognitive skill that underlies much expert behavior, including medical diagnosis. A given task often gives rise to widely divergent strategies across individuals, and flawed strategies have been implicated in prediction errors of experts (e.g., bush fire fighters). This project seeks to identify the underlying variables that determine an individual's strategy acquisition by relating working memo ....Categorization and Working Memory: Bridging two Pillars of Cognition. Categorization is a fundamental cognitive skill that underlies much expert behavior, including medical diagnosis. A given task often gives rise to widely divergent strategies across individuals, and flawed strategies have been implicated in prediction errors of experts (e.g., bush fire fighters). This project seeks to identify the underlying variables that determine an individual's strategy acquisition by relating working memory performance to categorization. Working memory is a core cognitive construct that is quite well understood, but its relationship to category learning has so far remained unexplored. Being able to predict the development of categorization strategies can help maximize expert performance.Read moreRead less
Are two processes one too many? An investigation of the viability of the dual-process model of recognition memory. Memory is the glue that holds together our lives and personal identities. While psychologists are developing better and more sophisticated accounts of how it works, many deep questions remain. The present research examines some of these questions in relation to how memory can be decomposed into its component processes and how we are to understand these processes. An appropriate unde ....Are two processes one too many? An investigation of the viability of the dual-process model of recognition memory. Memory is the glue that holds together our lives and personal identities. While psychologists are developing better and more sophisticated accounts of how it works, many deep questions remain. The present research examines some of these questions in relation to how memory can be decomposed into its component processes and how we are to understand these processes. An appropriate understanding of these questions is vital to the development of interventions (both psychological and pharmacological) designed to halt or even reverse memory decline associated with normal aging and age-associated brain disease (such as Alzheimer disease).Read moreRead less
Working Memory: The Binding of Spatial and Nonspatial Features in the Retention of Visual and Auditory Information. By advancing the understanding of how integrated representations are retained in memory for the features of visual objects and the features of sounds, the research will provide new theoretical insights as well as new methods for investigating several forms of psychopathology. Deficits in feature binding have been argued to be implicated in autism, in the auditory hallucinations exp ....Working Memory: The Binding of Spatial and Nonspatial Features in the Retention of Visual and Auditory Information. By advancing the understanding of how integrated representations are retained in memory for the features of visual objects and the features of sounds, the research will provide new theoretical insights as well as new methods for investigating several forms of psychopathology. Deficits in feature binding have been argued to be implicated in autism, in the auditory hallucinations experienced by individuals with schizophrenia, and in memory decline with advancing age. By investigating these deficits using insights from the proposed study, researchers may be able to develop ways to ameliorate the adverse effects of the deficits.Read moreRead less