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59 references
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- Vol 2 TE: App B
transfer of learningpositive transfernegative transfernear transferfar transferlow-road transferhigh-road transfermetacognitive bridgingEncyclopedia entry Evidence summaryAt a glance
Perkins and Salomon define transfer as prior learning enhancing or undermining performance in another context. They distinguish positive from negative transfer and near transfer from applications that differ substantially from the learning situation.
Key ideas
Research often finds weak spontaneous far transfer, but the authors argue that results depend on the mechanisms and instructional conditions involved. Low-road transfer is relatively automatic: extensive, varied practice makes a well-learned routine likely to be triggered by similar features. High-road transfer is effortful and mindful: learners abstract a principle, search for connections, and deliberately apply it, either anticipating future uses or looking backward for relevant prior knowledge. Teaching can support both processes. “Hugging” makes learning resemble intended applications through realistic practice, simulation, and varied examples; “bridging” prompts comparison, abstraction, analogy, planning, and metacognitive reflection.
Why it matters
For educators, transfer should be designed and assessed explicitly rather than assumed. Rich transfer is most likely when students practise across contexts and also articulate the deeper structures that connect those contexts.
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- Vol 5 RE: Chapter 15
generative artificial intelligenceai assessment scaleassessment validityhuman learning evidenceai-assisted assessmentassessment redesignacademic integrityPreprint Evidence summaryAt a glance
Perkins, Roe, and Furze revise the AI Assessment Scale as both a communication tool and a framework for redesigning assessment. It retains five levels, ranging from no generative-AI use through increasingly integrated use to AI exploration, but replaces the original traffic-light visual with neutral presentation so that levels are not mistaken for a hierarchy of quality.
Key ideas
Each level clarifies what students may do with AI and what evidence of human learning the task should preserve. The revision grounds the framework in social constructivism and assessment validity, incorporates feedback from implementation across school and higher-education settings, and addresses expanding multimodal capabilities. Practical vignettes illustrate how institutions and teachers can adapt the scale rather than impose identical rules on every subject or outcome. The authors warn against using it as a surveillance device, a universal policy, or a substitute for assessment design.
Why it matters
For educators, its strongest use is to make expectations explicit and reconsider whether a task still elicits valid evidence of the intended learning when AI assistance is available.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 12
self-regulated learningstudent teacher mentoringtask designlearner autonomystrategy useformative feedbackclassroom interactionsJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Perry, Phillips, and Hutchinson examine whether experienced teachers can mentor student teachers to design tasks and classroom practices that promote self-regulated learning.
Key ideas
Observations from a multi-year teacher-education project show that novices can learn to create complex, meaningful tasks, offer appropriate choice, support strategy use, and encourage learners to monitor and evaluate their work. The study links teacher modelling and guided practice with the gradual development of learner independence. It also shows that the surrounding classroom design matters: opportunities for self-regulation arise from the qualities of tasks, interactions, feedback, and expectations, not from generic reminders to take responsibility.
Why it matters
The findings concern mentored elementary teacher education, so transfer to other settings should be made thoughtfully.
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- Vol 2 TE: App B
developmental psychologydiscovery learningcooperative learningintellectual developmentautonomous inquiryteacher preparationexperimental pedagogyBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
Piaget connects educational reform with evidence about children’s intellectual development. The book combines a historical assessment of education since the mid-1930s with an argument for grounding teaching in developmental psychology and experimental inquiry.
Key ideas
Piaget challenges instruction that treats learners as passive recipients of finished knowledge. He instead emphasizes activity, discovery, cooperation, and tasks suited to the structures of thought children can currently construct. The discussion considers curriculum, teaching methods, examinations, teacher preparation, and the limited progress of experimental pedagogy compared with policy expansion. A recurring claim is that understanding how knowledge develops should inform, but not mechanically dictate, educational practice.
Why it matters
The book’s enduring contribution is its insistence that education should cultivate reasoning, creativity, and autonomous inquiry rather than only transmit established answers, while evaluating methods through systematic evidence about learning and development.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapters 2, 5, App A, App B, App C
goal orientationself-regulated learningmastery goalsperformance goalsachievement motivationmetacognitive regulationclassroom goal structuresBook chapter Evidence summaryAt a glance
Pintrich integrates achievement-goal theory with a general model of self-regulated learning. The framework treats learners as active participants who can monitor and regulate cognition, motivation, behaviour, and features of their environment across phases of forethought, monitoring, control, and reaction.
Key ideas
Goal orientations provide purposes for achievement activity and influence how students interpret tasks, judge competence, choose strategies, persist, and respond to difficulty. The chapter distinguishes mastery and performance goals and their approach and avoidance forms. Evidence reviewed suggests that mastery-approach goals are generally associated with adaptive beliefs, deeper processing, effort, and self-regulation, while avoidance orientations are more consistently maladaptive; performance-approach findings are mixed and depend on outcomes and context. Goals are not isolated traits, and students can pursue multiple goals shaped by classroom structures.
Why it matters
For educators, the account supports emphasising understanding, improvement, meaningful challenge, strategy use, and informative feedback while reducing conditions that make avoiding failure or public comparison dominant. The chapter also cautions that relationships are probabilistic and calls for more precise longitudinal and contextual research.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 11
motivated strategies for learning questionnaireacademic motivationlearning strategiesself-efficacymetacognitive self-regulationtest anxietyself-report measurementJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie report the structure, reliability, and predictive validity of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, a course-specific self-report instrument for college students.
Key ideas
Its motivation section covers value through intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation and task value, expectancy through control beliefs and self-efficacy, and affect through test anxiety. Its strategy section measures rehearsal, elaboration, organisation, critical thinking, metacognitive self-regulation, time and study-environment management, effort regulation, peer learning, and help seeking. Analyses indicated generally robust internal consistency and a defensible factor structure, while several scales related meaningfully to course grades and other performance indicators. The instrument is modular, so scales may be selected for a particular research purpose, but scores describe students’ reported motivation and strategy use in a specified course rather than fixed traits or direct observations of behaviour.
Why it matters
For educators and researchers, the MSLQ can diagnose patterns and evaluate relationships, yet interpretations should consider context, self-report bias, local validation, and the difference between correlational prediction and causal explanation.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 3
attention networkseffortful controlself-regulationtemperamentbrain developmentschool readinessexecutive attentionBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
Posner and Rothbart integrate research on attention, temperament, brain development, and self-regulation in infants and young children.
Key ideas
They describe neural networks for alerting, orienting, and executive attention, examine their connectivity, and relate individual differences to both genetic variation and experience. The book explains how effortful control develops as children become increasingly able to regulate attention, emotion, and behavior. It draws on behavioral tasks, temperament measures, neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and molecular genetics to connect levels of explanation rather than reducing education to brain images. Later chapters apply this framework to school readiness, literacy, numeracy, and the development of expertise.
Why it matters
The authors’ educational argument is that attention and regulatory systems are foundational for learning and can be influenced by environments and training, while biological constraints and developmental timing remain important.
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- Vol 1 RE: Chapter 9, App B
elaborative encodingexplanatory answersincidental learningintentional learningmemory retentionretrieval cuesknowledge elaborationJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Across three experiments, Pressley and colleagues examine why elaboration improves memory and whether learners benefit from generating it themselves. Adults studied base sentences expressing arbitrary relations, such as a particular person performing an action.
Key ideas
Some sentences included a precise elaboration that made the relation meaningful; in other conditions, participants answered questions prompting them to generate or interpret an explanation. Both intentional learning, where participants expected a test, and incidental learning were examined. Precise elaborations improved memory for the target relations, and actively constructing answers could support retention when the generated explanation connected the distinctive subject with the action. Benefits were not attributable simply to added words or time: the elaboration’s precision and relevance mattered. The work supports an encoding account in which explanation creates a discriminable, retrievable relation between otherwise arbitrary elements.
Why it matters
For educators, asking “why does this make sense?” can promote durable learning, but prompts should elicit accurate links to the target fact. Unguided elaboration may be vague, incorrect, or memorable for irrelevant details, so feedback and well-chosen examples remain important.
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- Vol 3 RE: Chapter 4
prior knowledgeexplanatory questioningprediction questionselaborative interrogationinferential learningmisconception correctionknowledge integrationJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Pressley and colleagues review four increasingly rigorous lines of evidence for the claim that attempting to construct explanatory answers improves learning. Correlational studies first show that students who provide explanations during group work tend to learn more.
Key ideas
Experimental manipulations that increase explanation during interaction then produce better outcomes. Research on prediction questions suggests that trying to anticipate upcoming text can activate and reorganise relevant prior knowledge. Finally, elaborative-interrogation experiments show benefits when learners answer “why” questions about facts, especially when their knowledge permits plausible connections. The proposed mechanism is mindful inferential transformation: learners do more than repeat information by linking it to what they know, identifying relations, and constructing a coherent account. Success depends on relevant prior knowledge and the quality of the generated explanation; attempts can fail or introduce error when learners lack a sound basis.
Why it matters
For educators, explanation prompts are most useful when questions target important relations, students have enough background knowledge, answers are checked, and discussion or feedback corrects misconceptions. The review presents promising but then-preliminary evidence rather than a universal guarantee.
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- Vol 6 PE: App E
- Vol 6 RE: Chapters 4, 5
teacher agencyecological approachcurriculum changeprofessional judgementteacher autonomyaccountability pressuresprofessional relationshipsBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson develop an ecological account of teacher agency: agency is not a fixed personal trait or simply the freedom to act, but an achievement produced through the interaction of individuals with cultural, structural, and material conditions.
Key ideas
Their model is temporal, relating teachers’ past experiences and professional histories, future aspirations, and practical judgements in present situations. Drawing on the Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change project and international perspectives, the book examines beliefs, professional language, relationships, school structures, accountability, and performativity as resources or constraints. It shows why policy invitations to become “agents of change” do not automatically create meaningful agency.
Why it matters
For schools and systems, the analysis implies that developing teacher capacity must be accompanied by environments that provide usable resources, collegial relationships, professional vocabularies, and genuine room for judgement.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 18
teacher agencyecological approachcurriculum policyprofessional judgementaccountability pressuresartificial intelligencedecision-making spaceBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
The second edition revisits Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson’s ecological account of teacher agency a decade after the original book.
Key ideas
Agency is treated as an achievement arising through the interaction of teachers’ capacities with cultural, structural, and material conditions, not as an individual possession. The revised volume adds an extensive review of research on the theory and conceptualization of agency and examines how changing curriculum policies, accountability pressures, professional discourse, social relations, and generative artificial intelligence shape what teachers can do. Its temporal model connects professional histories, future aspirations, and practical judgement in present contexts. The authors use this framework to analyze curriculum work and educational change and to identify conditions that enable or constrain meaningful action.
Why it matters
The practical implication is that systems cannot demand agency while withholding time, trust, resources, collegial support, and genuine decision-making space.
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- Vol 7 PE: App D
- Vol 7 RE: Chapters 9, 10, App D
samr modeleducational technologytask redesigntechnology integrationlearning goalstask transformationdigital pedagogyPresentation Evidence summaryAt a glance
Puentedura’s brief presentation introduces SAMR as a four-level model for examining how digital technology changes a learning task.
Key ideas
Substitution replaces an existing tool without functional change; augmentation adds functional improvement; modification enables substantial task redesign; and redefinition makes possible tasks that were previously difficult or inconceivable. The first two levels are grouped as enhancement and the latter two as transformation. The presentation situates SAMR alongside other frameworks and emphasizes movement through levels in relation to learning goals rather than treating technology use itself as improvement.
Why it matters
Its value is a compact vocabulary for discussing task design and asking whether a tool merely digitizes an established practice or changes what learners can create, investigate, communicate, and accomplish.
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- Vol 7 RE: Chapter 13
immersive virtual realityhigher educationhead-mounted displaysexperiential learningpresencespatial understandingcybersicknessinstructional designJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Radianti and colleagues systematically review 38 studies of immersive virtual reality using head-mounted displays in higher education. They map application domains, learning theories, research methods, design elements, evaluation approaches, and reported benefits and limitations.
Key ideas
Most applications concerned skill practice, simulation, or spatial understanding in fields such as medicine, engineering, and the natural sciences. Studies frequently reported engagement, motivation, presence, experiential access, and promising learning outcomes, but theoretical grounding was often weak and samples were commonly small. Evaluation focused heavily on usability and immediate reactions, with fewer rigorous comparisons, delayed measures, or analyses of cost and implementation. The review organises design considerations around interaction, realism, feedback, embodiment, collaboration, and instructional support and proposes a research agenda addressing learning theory, assessment, longitudinal effects, accessibility, and adverse experiences such as cybersickness.
Why it matters
For educators, immersive VR is best treated as a designed learning environment rather than a motivational device: its expense and complexity are justified when immersion enables consequential practice or experience that safer, simpler media cannot provide.
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- Vol 7 RE: Chapter 8, App B
synchronous hybrid learningsocial presenceremote participationinstructional orchestrationequitable accessshared learning environmentsteacher cognitive loadtechnology-mediated interactionJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Raes and colleagues review synchronous hybrid learning environments in which some students attend physically while others participate remotely at the same time. The synthesis examines the concept’s varied terminology, technological arrangements, pedagogical designs, and reported experiences.
Key ideas
Hybrid access can increase flexibility and inclusion, but teaching two audiences simultaneously creates persistent challenges. Remote students may feel less visible, have fewer opportunities to interact, and experience reduced social presence; teachers face greater orchestration, monitoring, and cognitive demands. Audio quality, camera placement, room layout, reliable connectivity, and equitable access to shared materials strongly shape participation. The literature was fragmented and often descriptive, with limited theory, small samples, and relatively little evidence about learning outcomes or designs sustained over time.
Why it matters
The authors call for research that treats the setting as one integrated learning environment and examines presence, engagement, teacher practices, and technology together. For educators, effective hybrid teaching requires deliberate parity: assign facilitation roles, establish turn-taking and communication routines, monitor both groups, design shared tasks, and provide technical and pedagogical support rather than merely livestreaming a conventional class.
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- Vol 7 RE: Chapters 9, 12, App D
universal design for learningintellectual disabilityflexible representationinclusive curriculumgeneral-education classroomsacademic participationinstructional accessibilityschoolwide implementationJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Rao, Smith, and Lowrey review how Universal Design for Learning has been applied with students with intellectual disability in pre-K–12 settings.
Key ideas
UDL proposes proactively designing flexible options for engagement, representation, and action and expression so barriers are addressed in curriculum rather than attributed only to learners. The small and varied evidence base includes adapted stories, technology-supported instruction, and inclusive general-curriculum activities in both self-contained and general-education classrooms, with outcomes such as interaction, perceptions, participation, and knowledge gains. The authors see potential for UDL to support meaningful academic inclusion rather than physical presence alone, but they do not treat the framework as independently proven or sufficient. Future studies should specify how guidelines are enacted, connect UDL with established effective practices, measure academic and participation outcomes, and examine schoolwide implementation.
Why it matters
The review’s central caution is that broad claims about accessibility need transparent instructional designs and stronger empirical tests for learners with extensive support needs.
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- Vol 5 RE: App D
constructivist learningcognitive developmentmetacognitionconceptual changesituated learninglearning environmentsknowledge reconstructionreflective practiceBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
Rauste-von Wright, von Wright, and Soini present a Finnish introduction to learning and education grounded largely in cognitive and constructivist perspectives.
Key ideas
The book treats learners as active, goal-directed interpreters who build and revise conceptions of the physical and social world through experience, feedback, and interaction. It connects psychological accounts of memory, motivation, metacognition, and development with teaching, curriculum, learning environments, teacher education, and the capacity to learn how to learn. The revised edition also emphasizes that learning is situated in cultural and social contexts and that instruction should help learners articulate prior conceptions, test interpretations, regulate activity, and transfer understanding.
Why it matters
Rather than equating learning with the accumulation of facts, the authors frame it as an ongoing reconstruction of knowledge and identity, with implications for designing meaningful tasks and reflective educational practice.
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- Vol 2 RE: App F
historical thinkinghistorical evidencecontinuity and changecausal reasoningperspective takingsource-based inquiryhistory assessmentteacher autonomyBook chapter Evidence summaryAt a glance
Rautiainen and van den Berg examine the development of history education in Finland as curricula moved from transmitting national content toward disciplinary historical thinking. The chapter situates change within Finland’s national curriculum, teacher autonomy, subject traditions, matriculation examination, and research-informed teacher education.
Key ideas
Historical competence involves working with evidence, recognizing interpretations, explaining continuity and change, causal reasoning, perspective taking, and understanding how historical accounts are constructed. Formal objectives increasingly value these practices, but classroom routines and high-stakes assessment can continue to privilege coverage and recall. The authors therefore expose a recurring implementation gap: ambitious curriculum language does not automatically alter tasks, textbooks, teacher knowledge, or assessment. Developing historical thinking requires coherent alignment among goals, classroom inquiry, source work, teacher preparation, and examinations.
Why it matters
The Finnish case illustrates both the possibilities created by professional autonomy and the persistence of cultural teaching scripts when system signals point in different directions.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapters 13, 14, 15, 17, 19
autonomy-supportive teachingself-determination theorystudent agencypsychological needsmeaningful rationalesinformational languageteacher–student relationshipsmotivational climateJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Reeve uses self-determination theory’s dialectical framework to explain how classroom conditions can support or frustrate students’ inner motivational resources. Autonomy-supportive teachers try to understand students’ perspectives, nurture interests and psychological needs, provide meaningful rationales, use informational rather than pressuring language, acknowledge negative feelings, allow time for self-directed work, and respond to student initiative.
Key ideas
A controlling style instead relies more heavily on directives, external incentives, deadlines, and teacher-centred solutions. Autonomy support does not mean removing structure: students are most engaged when teachers combine choice and voice with clear goals, guidance, feedback, and dependable expectations. The review argues that teachers can learn a more supportive motivating style and that it contributes to engagement, internalisation, well-being, and a stronger teacher–student relationship. For educators, the practical shift is often interpersonal rather than curricular: listen before directing, explain why a constraint matters, offer agency within boundaries, invite students’ thinking, and give hints that preserve ownership.
Why it matters
The article synthesises theory and prior evidence rather than testing a single classroom programme.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 18
autonomy-supportive teachingteacher interventionsself-determination theorystudent motivationneed satisfactionteacher professional developmentclassroom climateinstructional structureJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Reeve and Cheon review autonomy-supportive teaching as a learnable interpersonal style grounded in self-determination theory.
Key ideas
It begins with a student-focused attitude and an understanding tone and is enacted through behaviours such as taking students’ perspectives, inviting their initiative, offering meaningful choices, acknowledging negative feelings, explaining rationales, using informational language, and displaying patience. These practices support intrinsic motivation and help students internalise externally initiated activities; autonomy support is compatible with clear structure and guidance, not permissiveness or abandoning expectations. Across 51 teacher interventions, including 38 randomised controlled trials, teachers generally learned to become more autonomy supportive, and the resulting changes were associated with benefits for students’ need satisfaction, motivation, engagement, learning, well-being, and classroom climate, as well as some benefits for teachers. Effects and implementation still depend on context, training quality, and sustained practice.
Why it matters
For educators, improvement involves observing controlling habits, rehearsing alternatives, seeking feedback, and redesigning explanations and interactions so that necessary limits preserve students’ agency, voice, and sense of ownership.
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- Vol 4 RE: Chapters 25, 27
artificial intelligenceself-regulated learningintelligent tutoring systemslearning analyticsconversational agentsadaptive learningmetacognitive regulationlearner agencyJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Ren, Lee, and May systematically review how artificial intelligence has been used to support self-regulated learning in education.
Key ideas
Searching literature from 2004 through 2024, they retain twenty-seven studies and classify them by educational level, research method, subject area, AI technology, self-regulated-learning framework, and reported outcome. The review identifies intelligent tutoring and adaptive systems, learning analytics and prediction, conversational agents, and other data-driven supports that can prompt planning, monitoring, feedback use, strategy adjustment, and reflection. It also finds uneven theoretical grounding and limited evidence across contexts, with many studies concentrated in particular settings and phases of regulation.
Why it matters
The authors call for stronger alignment between AI functions and explicit self-regulation theory, more rigorous empirical designs, attention to learner agency and ethics, and research that tests sustained effects rather than short-term performance alone.
A transparent research trail
More than a bibliography.
What it contributes
Evidence summaries explain the central idea and why the source matters to educators.
How to access it
Entries link to lawful full text where available, or to a publisher, library or purchase page.
Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
Citation checks
References are checked against publisher records, scholarly indexes, DOI or ISBN metadata, repositories and author records where available. An entry marked [Citation not verified] preserves the wording found in the relevant volume without attributing findings to an unconfirmed work.
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