Teaching Practice

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10.1146/annurev.psych.55.082602.133124
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004. 55:71544

doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.55.082602.133124
c 2004 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
Copyright
First published online as a Review in Advance on September 22, 2003
TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Richard E. Mayer
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Access provided by Universidad Catolica de Temuco on 11/11/15. For personal use only.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara,

California 93106-9660; email: mayer@psych.ucsb.edu
Key Words educational psychology, cognitive psychology, learning, instruction,

reading
Abstract Psychology of subject matter refers to the scientific study of learning
and instruction within school subjects. The growing research literature on teaching
and learning of school subjects represents one of educational psychologys most productive accomplishments of the past two decades. The purpose of this chapter is to
examine representative advances in the psychology of subject matter, including how
people learn to read words, comprehend printed passages, write compositions, solve
arithmetic word problems, and understand how scientific systems work. The introduction provides a historical overview of how to promote transfer and is followed by
reviews of representative research in learning and teaching of reading fluency, reading
comprehension, writing, mathematics, and science.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Three Views of How to Promote Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TEACHING OF READING FLUENCY: THE TASK OF READING A
PRINTED WORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Being Aware of Sound Units: Insuring Phonological Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Decoding Words: Building Automatic Phonics Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Accessing Word Meaning: Fostering a Rich Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TEACHING OF READING COMPREHENSION: THE TASK OF
COMPREHENDING A PASSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using Prior Knowledge: Teaching Readers to Integrate Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using Prose Structure: Teaching Readers to Select and Organize
Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Making Inferences: Teaching Readers to Integrate and Organize
Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using Metacognitive Knowledge: Teaching Readers to Monitor
Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TEACHING OF WRITING: THE TASK OF WRITING A
COMPOSITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Planning: Teaching Writers to Find, Organize, and Adapt Material . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Translating: Helping Writers Overcome Cognitive Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Reviewing: Helping Writers Detect and Correct Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS: THE TASK OF SOLVING A
WORD PROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Problem Translating: Teaching Students to Represent Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Problem Integrating: Teaching Students to Use Problem Schemas . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Solution Planning and Monitoring: Teaching Students to Devise
Solution Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Solution Execution: Teaching Students to Carry Out Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TEACHING OF SCIENCE: THE TASK OF UNDERSTANDING HOW
THINGS WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Recognizing an Anomaly: Teaching by Confronting Misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . .
Constructing a New Model: Teaching by Providing a Concrete Analogy . . . . . . . .
Using a New Model: Teaching Students How to Test Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AUTHOR NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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INTRODUCTION
Psychology of subject matter refers to the scientific study of learning and instruction within specific school subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, science,
and history (Bruer 1993, Mayer 1999, Shulman & Quinlan 1996). The growing
research literature on teaching and learning of school subjects represents one of educational psychologys most productive accomplishments of the past two decades
(Mayer 2001a). The continuing development of psychologies of subject matter is
consistent with trends in cognitive science, including the focus on learning as (a)
a change in knowledge rather than solely as a change in behavior, and (b) as a
domain-specific rather than domain-general activity (Bruer 1993).
Advances in the psychology of subject matter have contributed to the creation
of an educationally relevant science of learning and instruction (Bransford et al.
1999, Lambert & McCombs 1998, Mayer 1999, Phye 1997). Importantly, research
on the psychology of subject matter shows the benefits of building a science
of instruction that is contextualized in school subjects rather than presented as
general context-free principles. A review of research on teaching of subject matter
contributes to theory (by focusing on knowledge representation and cognitive
processing in specific domains), to methodology (by focusing on cognitive task
analyses of realistic tasks), and to practice (by identifying effective instructional
procedures).
The purpose of this chapter is to examine some representative advances in the
psychology of subject matter, including how people learn to read words, comprehend printed passages, write compositions, solve arithmetic word problems, and
understand how scientific systems work. The introduction provides a historical
overview of how to promote transfer and is followed by reviews of representative research in learning and teaching of reading fluency, reading comprehension,
writing, mathematics, and science.
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Three Views of How to Promote Transfer

How can we help people learn so that they will be able to transfer what they have
learned to new situations? Transfer occurs when a learner applies what was learned
to new situations. Transfer is often cited as the major goal of education, and the concept of transfer is at the heart of the science of instruction (Bruer 1993, Mayer 2002,
Mayer & Wittrock 1996, Shulman & Quinlan 1996). For more than 100 years, psychologists have sought to understand how best to promote transfer (Haskell 2001,
Mayer 2002, Singley & Anderson 1989), resulting in three major views of transfer:
general transfer, specific transfer, and specific transfer of general knowledge.
General transfer refers to the idea that it is possible to improve the mind in
general. For example, as the twentieth century began, the dominant theory of
transfer was the doctrine of formal discipline, namely, the idea that certain school
subjects such as Latin and geometry would produce proper habits of mind that
could improve learning across all tasks. However, when educational psychologists
subjected the doctrine of formal discipline to careful empirical study in the early
1900s, no evidence for general transfer was found (Thorndike 1913, Thorndike &
Woodworth 1901).
Specific transfer refers to the idea that previous learning helps on a new task
only if the new task requires exactly the same behavior as was learned. This is the
theory of transfer that Thorndike and others offeredunder the name transfer by
identical elementsas an alternative to the failed doctrine of formal discipline.
More recently, Singley & Anderson (1989, p. 51) have proposed that skills can be
presented as production systems in which productions, once learned, can serve as
the identical elements of Thorndikes theory. Thus, transfer occurs to the extent
that productions required in a previously learned skill are the same as those required
in a to-be-learned skill.
Thorndikes theory of transfer by identical elements, and the updated versions
still in use today, have been challenged not on the grounds that specific transfer theory is incorrect but rather that it is incomplete. In the early 1900s, Judd
(1908) demonstrated learning a general principle about light refraction could promote transfer of how to shoot at underwater targets at various depths. Similarly,
Wertheimer (1959) demonstrated that learning a general principle about the structure of parallelograms enabled students to transfer their learning of how to compute
the area of a parallelogram to unusual shapes. Instead of specific transfer of specific
responses, these researchers proposed what can be called specific transfer of general knowledgethe idea that students can apply a general principle or conception
to new tasks that require the same principle or conception. This specific-transfer-ofgeneral-knowledge approach underlines advances in cognitive strategy instruction
(Pressley 1990) as well as the teaching of subject matter.
Like Goldilockss search for a place to rest, psychologys search for a theory
of transfer has taken it to three placesfirst to general transfer theories which
were too soft, then to specific transfer theories which were too hard, and finally
to a hybrid theory of specific transfer of general knowledge which seems to be
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just right. Thus psychology enters the new millennium equipped with a potentially
powerful conception of transfer, and one that drives the successful new field of
psychology of subject matter. In particular, the search for what to teach has moved
from general habits to specific responses, and finally to general principles and
conceptions that apply to a particular domain. For example, in arithmetic instead
of teaching Latin or geometry as a way to discipline the mind (i.e., general transfer), or solely memorizing arithmetic facts or procedures (i.e., specific transfer),
instruction includes a focus on underlying concepts such as a mental number line
that helps students understand a wide array of addition and subtraction problems
(i.e., specific transfer of general knowledge).
Cognitive task analysis is the primary tool of researchers in the field of psychology of subject matter. The goal is to identify the cognitive processes and knowledge
required to accomplish basic academic tasks. Once the underlying processes, conceptions, principles, or strategies have been pinpointed, the goal of instruction is
to insure they develop in the minds of learners. In the remainer of this chapter,
several representative academic tasks and the cognitive processes underlying them
are examined.
TEACHING OF READING FLUENCY:

THE TASK OF READING A PRINTED WORD
Learning to read is generally recognized as the single most important task for
students in the primary grades. Although interest in learning to read has a long
history dating back to the seminal work of Huey (1908/1968), the pace and fruitfulness of reading research has blossomed in the past two decades. In this section I
explore the issue of how a person accomplishes the task of reading a printed word.
In short, what does someone need to know in order to read a printed word? The
starting point in answering this question is to conduct a cognitive task analysis
that is, a description of the cognitive processes that a person would need to go
through in order to accomplish the task. I review research on three component
processes in word reading as shown in Table 1being aware of sound units in
words (i.e., phonological awareness), translating printed words into spoken words
(i.e., decoding), and determining the meaning of words (i.e., meaning access).
TABLE 1 Component processes in reading a word

Name
Definition
Being aware of sound units
Recognizing, producing, and manipulating phonemes
Decoding words
Converting a printed word into sound
Accessing word meaning
Finding a mental representation of the words meaning in

ones memory
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Being Aware of Sound Units: Insuring Phonological Awareness

The English language consists of approximately 42 sound units ranging from /a/
as in say to /z/ as in zoo. Phonological awareness refers to the processes of
recognizing, producing, and manipulating the sound units of a language. Examples
of phonological awareness include segmentationthat is, given a spoken word
such ascat, the student can produce the three constituent sounds /c/, /a/, and
/t/and blendingthat is, given some spoken sounds such as /n/, /i/, and /s/ the
student can combine them into a spoken word, nice. Other examples include
deletion of the first phoneme (for the spoken word top say it without the /t/),
deletion of the last phoneme (for the spoken word same say it without the
/m/), substitution of the first phoneme (for the spoken word ball change the
beginning sound from /b/ to /k/), and substitution of the last phoneme (for the
spoken word park change the last sound from /k/ into /t/). In sum, as a first
step in word reading, students need to know that words are composed of sound
units (or phonemes), and students need to be able to hear, produce, and manipulate
them.
Children tend to develop phonological awareness through the primary grades.
This observation can be called the phonological development hypothesis, which has
been examined in a variety of studies. One way to test this hypothesis is to conduct
cross-sectional studies of the phonological awareness performance of students at
various ages. For example, when children were asked to segment spoken words
into constituent phonemes, almost none of the four-year-olds succeeded whereas
most of the six-year-olds did (Liberman et al. 1974). Similarly, when children
were asked to segment spoken words in constituent syllables, approximately half
of the four-year-olds succeeded whereas almost all six-year-olds did (Liberman
et al. 1974).
Another way to test the phonological development hypothesis is to conduct longitudinal studies, examining the phonological awareness performance of students
at various points in their childhood. For example, Juel et al. (1986) gave a battery
of phonological awareness tests to a group of children at several points across
their primary grades, including segmentation, blending, deletion of first phoneme,
deletion of last phoneme, substitution of first phoneme, and substitution of last
phoneme. Upon entering first grade, they averaged 35% correct on the phonological awareness tests, and by the end of first grade they averaged 73% correct. Upon
entering second grade, they averaged 83% correct, and by the end of second grade
they averaged 86% correct.
Phonological awareness is a prerequisite to learning to read. This statement
can be called the phonological awareness hypothesis, which has been tested in
numerous studies. One way of testing the phonological awareness hypothesis is
to compare the phonological awareness performance of good and poor readers.
For example, Bradley & Bryant (1978) found that younger good readers performed better than older poor readers on tests of phonological awareness such as
identifying which of four words lacked a sound contained in the other four words
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(e.g., answering that rag is the odd word among sun, sea, sock, rag). Similarly,
students who have difficulty learning to read tend to lack phonological awareness
(Stanovich 1991).
A second way of testing the phonological awareness hypothesis is to conduct
longitudinal studies comparing a childs phonological awareness early in schooling
with the childs reading performance several years later. For example, Bradley &
Bryant (1985) found a strong correlation (r = 0.5) between the scores of four- and
five-year-olds on a phonological awareness test with their scores on a standardized
test of reading achievement given three years later. In a similar study, childrens
phonological awareness scores taken at the beginning of first grade correlated
strongly with their scores on pronouncing printed words (r = 0.5) or writing
spoken words (r = 0.6) at the end of second grade (Juel et al. 1986).
In a review of longitudinal studies testing the phonological awareness hypothesis, Wagner & Torgesen (1987) reported 20 cases in which childrens performance
on tests of phonological awareness at an early age correlated strongly with their
performance on tests of reading achievement at a later age, even when the effects of cognitive ability were controlled. Consistent with the phonological awareness hypothesis, Wagner & Torgesen (1987, p. 202) concluded that phonological
awareness and reading are related independent of general cognitive ability.
A third way of testing the phonological awareness hypothesis is to determine
whether instruction in phonological awareness helps students learn to read. For
example, some five- and six-year-olds received phonological awareness training
in 40 ten-minute sessions spread over a two-year period (Bradley & Bryant 1985,
1991). In a typical training session, the child was given a picture of a bus and
then asked to pick out the picture starting with the same sound from a group of
pictures. Other students (control group), received 40 ten-minute sessions involving
the same words but without phonological tasks. When tested at the end of the
two-year instructional period, students who had received phonological awareness
training scored nearly one year ahead of control students on a standardized test of
reaching achievement. When tested five years later, the trained group still scored
higher than the control group on reading achievement.
In another study, some kindergarteners received 28 twenty-minute sessions on
phonological awareness over a seven-week period whereas other kindergarteners
(control group) received no phonological awareness training beyond regular classroom activities (Bradley & Bryant 1985). Although both groups scored about the
same on a pretest of phonological awareness, the trained group showed a large
gain on a posttest of phonological awareness compared to almost no gain for the
control group. Importantly, by the end of the school year 35% of the phonological
awareness trained group were classified as readers, compared to 7% of the control
group.
Other researchers have also found that providing direct instruction in phonological awareness (sometimes called phonemic awareness) can help improve later
reading achievement (Bus & van IJzendoorn 1999, Ehri et al. 2001). For example,
in a review of 36 published studies, Bus & van IJzendoorn (1999, p. 411) found
consistent evidence that phonological training reliably enhances phonological
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and reading skills. Similarly, in a review of 52 published studies, Ehri et al.

(2001, p. 260) found consistent evidence that phonemic awareness instruction
is effective. . . in helping children acquire phonemic awareness and in facilitating
transfer of phonemic awareness skills to reading.
The study of phonological awareness represents one of the landmark success
stories in the annals of psychologies of subject matter. Within the past 20 years,
researchers have succeeded in identifying phonological awareness as a prerequisite
skill for learning to read. Goswami & Bryant (1992, p. 49) summarize the story as
follows:
There can be little doubt that phonological awareness plays an important role
in reading. The results of a large number of studies amply demonstrate a
strong (and consistent) relationship between childrens ability to disentangle
and to assemble the sounds of words and their progress in learning to read. . . .
There is also evidence that successful training in phonological awareness helps
children learn to read. . . . However, it is only the first step.
What happens if students do not build sufficient phonological awareness skills
within their first few years of primary school? Stanovich (1986, p. 364) describes a
causal chain of escalating negative effects in which students with poor phonological skills have reduced opportunities to develop automaticity in decoding, which
in turn causes them to have to pay more attention to the process of word decoding,
leaving less capacity for comprehending what they are reading. Thus, they wind
up with a more limited vocabulary and knowledge base, both of which are needed
for reading comprehension. Phonological awareness trainingeven as little as 5
to 18 hours of direct instructionattempts to break this chain and give students a
chance to become proficient readers.
Decoding Words: Building Automatic Phonics Processing

The English language consists of 26 letters that, in various ways, are related to 42
sounds. Decoding refers to the process of converting a printed word into a sound.
Thus, decoding consists of pronouncing printed words but does not necessarily
involve knowing what the words mean. Examples include giving a student a printed
word (such as CAT) and asking the student to read it aloud (such as saying
cat) or giving the student a printed pseudoword (such as BLUD) and asking
the student to read it aloud (such as saying blood).
Development of automatic decoding processing (i.e., being able to decode words
without using conscious mental effort) is a prerequisite for success in reading. This
can be called the decoding hypothesis, and is based on the idea that attentional
capacity is limited. When it must be used to decode words, it cannot be used to
make sense of the material. Consistent with the decoding hypothesis, third- and
fifth-grade students who scored high on a standardized test of reading comprehension were much faster in pronouncing pseudowords or unfamiliar words than
were students who scored low on reading comprehension (Perfetti & Hogaboam
1975).
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A second way of testing the decoding hypothesis is to teach students how to

decode so the decoding process becomes automatic. For example, asking students
to read and reread a passage aloud until they make no errors (i.e., the method
of repeated reading) is a useful way to build decoding automaticity (Dowhower
1994, Koskinen & Blum 1986, Samuels 1979). Overall, the preponderance of
research shows that children need to develop fast and automatic word decoding
processes before they can become proficient in reading comprehension (Mayer
2003). Even in learning a second language, decoding skill in ones native language
is a major predictor of decoding skill in ones second language, which in turn is
a major predictor of reading comprehension in ones second language (Meschyan
& Hernandez 2002).
Perhaps the most contentious debate in the field of reading instruction concerns
whether to use a phonics or a whole-word approach for teaching students how
to decode words (Adams 1990; Chall 1983, 2000; Pressley 1998). In the phonics approach, children learn to produce the sounds for individual letters or letter
groups and to blend those sounds together to form a word. In the whole-word
approach, children learn to pronounce a word as a single unit, which can be called
sight-reading. Fortunately, the great debate has been subjected to a great amount
of careful research, and the results clearly show that some instruction in phonics is needed for the development of reading achievement (Adams 1990; Chall
1983, 2000; Pressley 1998). Almost all observers call for a balanced approach that
includes aspects of phonics and whole-word instruction (Pressley 1998).
The study of decoding represents another success story in the annals of psychologies of subject matter. Within the past 20 years, researchers have reached
consensus that balanced instruction including phonics promotes decoding automaticity, which is needed for success in reading.
Accessing Word Meaning: Fostering a Rich Vocabulary

The third component process in word reading is meaning access, which refers
to finding a mental representation of the meaning of a word in ones memory.
Meaning access depends on having a rich vocabulary, such as knowing that cat
refers to a four-legged furry creature that purrs.
Less-skilled readers are more likely to rely on the sentence context when reading
a word than are more-skilled readers (West & Stanovich 1978). In short, skilled
readers have automatized their meaning access processing so that when they read
a word they effortlessly know what it means without having to use context cues to
figure it out. When meaning access does not require attentional capacity, readers
can use all of their attention for making sense of the passage.
The vocabulary hypothesis is that having a strong vocabularywhich allows
readers to access word meaning effortlesslypromotes performance on tests of
reading comprehension. In support of this hypothesis, Anderson & Freebody
(1981) reported that children who have better vocabularies perform better on
tests of reading comprehension, and Meschyan & Hernandez (2002) report a high
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correlation between vocabulary test score and reading comprehension test score.
Similarly, students perform better on tests of reading comprehension when unfamiliar words are replaced with more familiar synonyms (Marks et al. 1974).
It is estimated that young readers need to increase their vocabularies by at least
2000 words per year (Nagy & Scott 2000). What is the best way to promote a
rich vocabularythat is, fast and effortless word recognition? On the one hand,
direct instruction involves teaching the definitions of a core set of words, whereas
on the other hand immersion involves asking students to engage in many literate
activities such as reading. Direct instruction is most effective when students are
encouraged to use the words in familiar contexts and improves reading comprehension only in passages that include the newly learned words (Beck et al. 1982, Stahl
& Fairbanks 1986). Yet, according to Nagy & Herman (1987), it is not possible
for students to achieve the full vocabulary growth they need each year solely via
direct instruction, so immersion is the only reasonable alternative. According to
this view, students must learn the bulk of new vocabulary words through reading,
listening to, or producing prose. Less research has been conducted on vocabulary learning than on processes in the foregoing sections, so continued work is
needed.
TEACHING OF READING COMPREHENSION:

THE TASK OF COMPREHENDING A PASSAGE
The previous section focused on learning to read (reading fluency); this section focuses on reading to learn (reading comprehension). Reading comprehension is the
process of making sense out of a text passage, that is, building a meaningful mental
representation of the text. This process of active learning occurs when a reader (a)
selects relevant information from a text passage, (b) organizes the incoming material into a coherent mental representation, and (c) integrates the incoming material
with existing knowledge. What does someone need to know in order to understand
a passage, that is, engage in active learning? Four cognitive processes are involved
in reading comprehension: using prior knowledge (which involves the process of
integrating), using prose structure (which involves the processes of selecting and
organizing), making inferences (which involves the processes of integrating and
organizing), and using metacognitive knowledge (which involves the monitoring
of cognitive processing). These processes are summarized in Table 2.
Using Prior Knowledge: Teaching Readers

to Integrate Knowledge
The readers prior knowledgeincluding his or her storehouse of schemas
constitutes the single most important factor underlying individual differences in
reading comprehension. According to schema theory, reading comprehension is
a process of assimilating presented information to existing knowledge, so the
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TABLE 2 Component processes in comprehending a passage

Name
Definition
Using prior knowledge
Activating and assimilating to existing schemas
Using prose structure
Distinguishing important and unimportant material

Organizing material into a coherent structure
Making inferences
Adding appropriate inferences to the material
Using metacognitive knowledge
Determining whether the passage makes sense
outcome of learning depends both on what was presented and the readers existing
knowledge. Thus, in order to make sense of a passage, a reader must possess and
use relevant schemas.
For example, in Bartletts (1932) classic study, students who recalled an unfamiliar folk story they had read tended to leave out many details (leveling), embellish
particularly distinctive details (sharpening), and reorganize the story on the basis
of a theme such as a war battle or hunting accident (rationalization). According
to Bartlett, students dropped all references to a spirit world because these did
not fit their existing schemas and students reorganized the story so it would fit
with an existing schema. Classic cognitive studies have confirmed that students
perform more poorly on reading comprehension tests when they lack appropriate
prior knowledge (Bransford & Johnson 1972) and that different material is learned
depending on the prior knowledge used by the reader (Pichert & Anderson 1977).
In spite of their skill in reading fluency, young readers often lack appropriate
schemas to understand prose (Gernsbacher 1990). For example, American elementary school children had difficulty in reading about the history of the French
and Indian War (Beck et al. 1991). However, when the passage was reframed as
a conflict in which both France and England claimed the same piece of land, students could use a familiar schema (i.e., a fight between two sides that both want
the same thing) to make sense of the passage. Students learned much more from
the passage if they read the reframed version (Beck et al. 1991) or received some
equivalent background information before reading the original passage (McKeown
et al. 1992). A major theme of research on prior knowledge is that reading material
should be appropriate for the interests and experience of the reader.
Using Prose Structure: Teaching Readers to Select

and Organize Knowledge
The second process in Table 2 is the ability to use prose structure (e.g., the hierarchical organization of ideas), including recognizing the difference between important
ideas and minor details. Beginning readers often lack sensitivity to prose structure.
When asked to read and recall material from a text passage, younger readers
and less-skilled readers tend to remember important and unimportant information
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equally well whereas older and more-skilled readers tend to remember important
information better than unimportant information (Brown & Smiley 1977, Taylor
1980). Similarly, older readers and more-skilled readers spend more time reading
sentences with topic shiftsusually the first sentence in a passage or sectionthan
do younger or less-skilled readers (Gernsbacher 1990, Hyona 1994).
Can readers be taught to use prose structure during reading? One technique is to
teach students how to outline or summarize passages. For example, Chmielewski
& Dansereau (1998) taught some students how to outline a passage as a concept
mapconsisting of nodes and linkswhereas other students received no training.
On a subsequent reading task in which no note taking was allowed, the mapping
group performed much better on a retention test than did the control group. Similarly, Cook & Mayer (1988) taught students how to outline textbook paragraphs
based on prose structures such as classification (e.g., breaks material into categories as in a hierarchy), sequence (e.g., describes a step-by-step process as in
a flow chart), and comparison (e.g., compares two or more things along several
dimensions as in a matrix). Students who received structure training performed
better on understanding new text passages than did control students. Finally, students who were told to take notes by filling in a compare/contrast matrix learned
more from a lecture than students who were told to take conventional notes (Kiewra
et al. 1991). Overall, less-skilled readers benefit from direct instruction in how to
organize incoming material.
Making Inferences: Teaching Readers to Integrate

and Organize Knowledge
The third process in Table 2 is inference-making. Weaver & Kintsch (1991) estimate that readers may need to make as many as a dozen inferences to understand
a sentence in a passage. Although researchers recognize that the ability to make
inferences is a cornerstone of reading competence (Winne et al. 1993, p. 53),
young readers are notoriously poor at making inferences during reading (Oakhill
& Yuill 1996). For example, kindergarteners are less likely than are fourth graders
to make inferences while listening to sentences, such as inferring that a key was
used for the sentence, Our neighbors unlocked the door (Paris & Lindauer 1976).
Similarly, in reading a story about a boy reaching for a heavy cookie jar that was on
a high shelf just as the door opened, older readers were more likely than younger
readers to infer that the boy was caught in the act of doing something he was not
supposed to do (Paris & Upton 1976).
Can students be taught to make appropriate inferences while reading? In a
series of classroom studies, practice in making inferences about text passages
spread over five weeks improved the reading comprehension of second graders
and poor-reading fourth graders but not good-reading fourth graders (Hansen 1981,
Hansen & Pearson 1983). In a similar study, primary grade children received seven
30-minute training sessions on inference making such as generating questions that
could be answered by a text (Oakhill & Yuill 1996). For poor readers, the trained
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group showed an improvement in reading comprehension as compared to a control

group, but for good readers the training had no effect. Finally, Winne et al. (1993)
provided nine sessions of inference training to poor comprehenders in grades 4
through 6, including asking students to answer inference questions about a passage
and then providing correct answers. The trained group showed improvements in
reading as compared to other groups. Overall, there is encouraging evidence that
students can learn to improve their inference-making skills.
Using Metacognitive Knowledge: Teaching Readers

to Monitor Processing
The final process listed in Table 2 is using metacognitive knowledge, that is, knowledge of ones cognitive processing. The most important metacognitive process in
reading is comprehension monitoringthe process of recognizing when a passage
does not make sensebut elementary school children are not good at it. Markman
(1979) found that elementary school children in grades 3, 5, and 6 did not recognize inconsistencies in passages, such as that there is no light at the bottom of
the ocean and fish that live at the bottom of the ocean can see the color of their
food. Similarly, most third graders did not recognize inconsistencies in a passage
such as statements about a strainer that water passes through the holes and the
spaghetti stays in the strainer and the spaghetti passed through the holes in the
strainer into the bowl and the water stayed in the strainer (Vosniadou et al. 1988).
Can students be taught to monitor their comprehension? There is encouraging
evidence that students can learn to improve their comprehension monitoring skills.
For example, Rubman & Waters (2000) asked students to represent a passage by
placing figures on a magnetic board or to simply read the passage. Low-skill third
and sixth graders in the storyboard construction group were much more likely to
recognize inconsistencies than those in the read-only group, and weaker effects
were found for the high-skill third and sixth graders. Similarly, Markman & Gorin
(1981) found that 8- and 10-year-olds were better able to recognize inconsistencies
in a passage after being shown examples in other passages. In addition, third graders
who received examples as well as direct instruction in how to use comprehensionmonitoring strategies performed particularly well on recognizing inconsistencies
in passages as compared to nontrained students (Elliot-Faust & Pressley 1986).
TEACHING OF WRITING: THE TASK OF WRITING

A COMPOSITION
What are the cognitive processes involved in writing a composition? In order to
answer this question, Hayes & Flower (1980) asked students to think aloud as they
wrote an essay on a topic such as How I spent my summer vacation. In analyzing
the writers thinking-aloud protocols, Hayes & Flower identified three cognitive
processes in writing: planning, in which the writer remembers or finds relevant
information, decides how to organize it, and sets goals for how to communicate
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TABLE 3 Component processes in writing a composition

Name
Definition
Planning
Remembering or finding relevant information,

deciding how to organize it, and setting goals
for communicating with the audience
Translating
Producing printed text on paper or screen
Reviewing
Detecting and correcting errors in the text
with the audience; translating, in which the writer produces text; and reviewing, in
which the writer detects and corrects errors in the text. This analysis is similar to
others (Gould 1980, Kellogg 1994), including a revised model by Hayes (1996),
and is summarized in Table 3.
Planning: Teaching Writers to Find, Organize,

and Adapt Material
A major cognitive process in writing an essay is planning, which includes the
subprocesses of generating (i.e., recalling relevant information from ones memory
or locating relevant information from external sources), organizing (i.e., figuring
out how to organize the material in a coherent way), and goal setting (i.e., evaluating
the material against criteria such as appropriateness for the audience).
Gould (1980) found that adults who were asked to write a short business letter
spent about two thirds of their time in pausesgenerally after long clauses or
sentenceswhich suggests that most of the time was spent in local planning. In
Goulds study the writers did not show long pauses before they startedindicating
a lack of global planningand did not spend much time revising what they had
written. Matsuhashi (1982) obtained similar results in watching high school students write essays. Apparently, when the task is very simple or the writers are
inexperienced, there is not much global planning.
Bereiter & Scardamalia (1987) identified a developmental trend in planning
activities for writing in which children entering elementary school dont generate many ideas, older elementary school children generate many ideas but fail
to organize or evaluate them (i.e., knowledge telling), and older high school students generate a lot of ideas that they also evaluate and organize (i.e., knowledge
transforming).
Can students be taught to engage in prewriting activities that foster appropriate
planning processes? Kellogg (1994) asked college students to write an essay on
a given issue. Before starting to write the essay, they were told to write as many
ideas as they could think of (generating group), to write a list of important ideas
(listing group), to produce a hierarchical outline (outline group), or were given no
instructions (no prewriting activity group). Students in the outline group produced
higher quality essays than students in any of the other groups. When students are
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instructed to engage in planning processesincluding generating, evaluating, and

organizing ideasthey write better essays.
Another way to foster the planning process is to ask students to write about
familiar topics. For example, Caccamise (1987) reported that students produced
more ideas when planning to write about a familiar topic than an unfamiliar one.
Overall, students need to have access to material that they have organized and
thought about.

Translating: Helping Writers Overcome Cognitive Load

In the process of translating, the writer carries out the writing plan by producing
written text. Writers tend to alternate between cognitive processes such as planning
and translating, by generating a plan, writing a little bit, then checking the plan,
and so on (Hayes & Flower 1980).
Translating demands conscious attention. According to Nystrand (1982), the
written text should be legible, grammatical, meaningful, coherent, and appropriate
for the intended audience. If writers focus their attention on lower level aspects
of translatingsuch as writing legible and grammatical sentencesthey may not
have sufficient remaining attentional capacity to handle higher level aspects of
translatingsuch as writing an essay that makes sense and influences the reader.
One way to remove low-level constraints on translating is to allow students to
dictate an essay. For example, fourth- and sixth-grade students who were asked to
dictate an essay generated more words and slightly better essays than students who
were asked to write an essay by hand (Bereiter & Scardamalia 1987). Consistent
with the constraint removal idea, Read (1981) has shown that even six-year-olds
can writing interesting stories when they are told to not worry about spelling,
punctuation, or grammar.
In a related study, students were asked to write a preliminary draft followed by
a final draft (Glynn et al. 1982). Students who were told to write a polished preliminary draft (i.e., paying attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar) generated
lower quality final drafts than did students who were told to write unpolished preliminary drafts (i.e., not paying attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar).
Apparently, students in the unpolished draft group could devote more attention
to writing a powerful essay because they did not have to focus their attention on
low-level aspects of translating.
Using a word processor may be another way to remove low-level constraints
on translating. For example, students generated higher quality essays when they
used a word processor than when they wrote in longhand, but only if they were
experienced in using the word processor (Kellogg & Mueller 1993). In a review,
Bangert-Drowns (1993) found that the advantage for word processors was greater
for younger writers who were experienced with using word processors. However,
for more experienced writers, the quality of essays was generally equivalent with
word processors or pens (Bangert-Drowns 1993, Kellogg 1994). Apparently, when
the output device (handwriting or word processing) requires undue attention and
the writing task itself is demanding, the quality of the final product can suffer.
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Reviewing: Helping Writers Detect and Correct Errors

Reviewing refers to detecting errors in a written text and correcting them. When
asked to write an essay, college freshmen spent less than 10% of their time on
reading or revising what they wrote (Pianko 1979). Similarly, when asked to write
a one-page business letter, managers also spent less than 10% of their time reading
or revising what they wrote (Gould 1980). Most of the corrections students make
are surface and mechanical revisions rather than improvements in the organization
or effectiveness of the text (Fitzgerald 1987). Even when middle school students
are required to revise their essays, they fail to detect most of their mechanical
syntax errors (e.g., subject-verb disagreement) and referent errors (e.g., misuse
of a pronoun) and fail to correct most of the errors they detect (Bartlett 1982).
Overall, there is clear and compelling evidence that students could benefit from
training in how to revise their essays.
Revision training focuses on helping students become more effective in the
reviewing process. McCutchen et al. (1997, McCutchen 2000) reported that seventh graders were more successful in correcting errors in meaning from an essay
on a familiar topic (e.g., Christopher Columbus) than an unfamiliar topic (e.g.,
Margaret Mead). When the teacher highlighted sentences with mechanical errors,
seventh graders focused more on mechanical errors and less on errors in meaning. Apparently, young writers are easily distracted from the task of detecting and
correcting errors in meaning.
In an exemplary study, Fitzgerald & Markman (1987) gave sixth graders a series of thirteen 45-minute sessions on how to make additions, deletions, substitutions, and rearrangements in compositions (i.e., revision training). On a subsequent
writing assignment, students who had received direct instruction in these revision
activities made more revisions and produced higher quality written products than
did untrained sixth-grade students who spent an equivalent amount of time reading
fine literature.
TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS: THE TASK

OF SOLVING A WORD PROBLEM
What does someone need to know in order to solve an arithmetic word problem
such as: At Lucky, butter costs 65 cents per stick. Butter at Vons costs 2 cents less
per stick than butter at Lucky. If you need to buy 4 sticks of butter, how much will
you pay at Vons? Table 4 lists four cognitive processes in mathematical problem
solving: translating, integrating, planning, and executing (Mayer 1992).
Problem Translating: Teaching Students to

Represent Sentences
In translating, the problem solver converts each sentence into an internal mental
representation. This process requires linguistic knowledge (such as knowing that
Vons and Lucky are proper nouns) and factual knowledge (such as knowing that
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TABLE 4 Component processes in solving an arithmetic word problem

Name
Definition
Translating
Converting each sentence into an internal mental representation
Integrating
Building a coherent mental representation of the problem situation
Planning/monitoring
Devising a solution plan and keeping track of how well it works
Executing
Carrying out a solution plan
there are 100 cents in a dollar). For example, the first sentence can be mentally
represented as Lucky = 0.65, the second sentence as Vons = Lucky 0.02,
and the third as Total Cost = 4 Vons. Research shows that people have a
particularly difficult time in translating relational statements, that is, sentences that
express a quantitative relation between two variables (such as the second sentence).
For example, when primary grade children were asked to listen to and repeat back
a problem such as Joe has three marbles. Tom has five more marbles than Joe.
How many marbles does Tom have? they sometimes recalled the problem as Joe
has three marbles. Tom has five marbles. How many marbles does Tom have?
(Riley et al. 1982). Similar results were found when college students were asked to
read and recall a list of eight word problems (Mayer 1982). When college students
were asked to write an equation to represent relational sentences such as There are
six times as many students as professors at this university, they wrote the wrong
equation (e.g., 6S = P) about one third of the time (Soloway et al. 1982). Hegarty
et al. (1995) found that poor problem solvers were particularly prone to errors in
remembering relational statements as compared to successful problem solvers.
These results demonstrate that students need instruction in how to represent
the sentences in word problems, particularly relational sentences. In an exemplary
training study, college students who had difficulty in solving word problems received two 30-minute training sessions in how to represent the sentences in word
problems on a number line (Lewis 1989). As a result, their error rates on solving
word problems fell dramatically as compared to students who had not received the
training. In a school-based study, middle school students participated in a 20-day
prealgebra unit that emphasized translating relational sentences into tables, graphs,
equations, and their own words (Brenner et al. 1997). Students who participated
showed larger gains in solving word problems than did students who received
conventional instruction.
Problem Integrating: Teaching Students to Use

Problem Schemas
A sentence-by-sentence translation of each sentence in a word problem is a good
first step, but the ultimate goal in understanding a problem is to build a situation
modelthat is, a mental representation of the situation being described in the
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problem (Kintsch & Greeno 1985, Mayer & Hegarty 1996, Nathan et al. 1992).
Problem integrating occurs when a problem solver builds a mental representation of
the situation described in the problem. The process of integrating requires that the
problem solver select relevant information from the problem statement, organize
it into a coherent representation, and make necessary inferences (Mayer 1992).
Integrating depends on schematic knowledgethat is, knowledge of problem types
(such as knowing that the butter problem is a total cost problem in which total
cost = unit cost number of units).
When high school students were asked to sort word problems into categories,
they showed high levels of agreement and were quite fast in their decisions (Hinsley
et al. 1977). Overall, 18 categories were created, such as distance-rate-time problems, work problems, and area problems, which suggests that the students had
developed schemas for common types of word problems. In a related study, Mayer
(1981) identified approximately 100 types of word problems in some commonly
used middle-school mathematics textbooks, including varieties of the categories
found by Hinsley et al. (1977). When students were asked to read and then recall a
list of eight word problems, they made more errors in recalling rare problem types
(i.e., those appearing infrequently in textbooks) than common problem types (i.e.,
those appearing frequently in textbooks) (Mayer 1982).
Experts and novices differ in the way they sort word problems. For example,
Quilici & Mayer (1996) found that students who lacked experience in statistics
tended to sort statistics word problems based on cover story (such as grouping all
problems about rainfall) whereas students who had taken several statistics courses
tended to sort statistics word problems based on the type of statistical test involved
(such as grouping all t-test problems). Similarly, seventh graders who are poor
problem solvers tend to sort problems on the basis of the cover story (such as
putting together all problems about money) whereas good problem solvers tend to
sort problems on the basis of the underlying mathematical structure (Silver 1981).
Successful and unsuccessful problem solvers tend to engage in different cognitive processes while reading word problems (Lewis & Mayer 1987, Verschaffel
et al. 1992). Unsuccessful problem solvers tend to focus on the numbers in the
problem and to use the keywords in the problem to determine what operation to
apply (e.g., less than primes subtraction). For example, in the following problem
the keyword less than primes the incorrect arithmetic operation of subtracting 2
from 65: At Lucky, butter costs 65 cents per stick. This is 2 cents less per stick
than butter at Vons. If you need to buy 4 sticks of butter, how much will you pay at
Vons? Unsuccessful problem solvers are more likely to give the incorrect answer,
(0.65 0.02) 4 = 2.52, for this version of the problem, but they tend to give
the correct answer for a version in which the keyword primes the correct arithmetic
operation (e.g., At Lucky, butter costs 65 cents per stick. Butter at Vons costs 2
cents less per stick than butter at Lucky. If you need to buy 4 sticks of butter, how
much will you pay at Vons?). In contrast, successful problem solvers give the
correct answer for both versions of the problem (Hegarty et al. 1995, Mayer &
Hegarty 1996, Verschaffel et al. 1992). Eye movement studies (Hegarty et al. 1995)
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show that unsuccessful problem solvers spend more time looking at the numbers
and keywords (e.g., 65, 2, less than, 4, how much) in a word problem whereas
successful problem solvers spend more time looking at the variable names (e.g.,
Lucky, Vons). The unsuccessful problem solvers appear to be engaging in a process
of number grabbing or direct translation whereas the successful problem solvers
appear to be building a situation model (Mayer & Hegarty 1996). Consistent with
this distinction, Low & Over (1989) found that problem solving scores correlated
highly with students scores on detecting missing or irrelevant information in word
problems.
There appears to be a developmental trend in which students create more differentiated problem schemas as they gain more experience. For example, kindergarteners seem to know cause/change problems (Pete has two marbles. Tim gives
him three more marbles. How many marbles does Pete have now?), but as children
gain more experience over the next few years, they distinguish other types, such as
combination problems (Pete has two marbles. Tim has three marbles. How many
do they have altogether?) and comparison problems (Pete has two marbles. Tim
has three more marbles than Pete. How many marbles does Tim have?) (Riley
et al. 1982).
Students can learn to build situation models, that is, coherent representations of
the situation described in the problem. For example, Low (1989) taught students to
detect whether word problems contained irrelevant information, needed additional
information, or neithera task that requires students to build a coherent situation
model of the problem. Students who received training showed large improvements
in their word problem solving performance as compared to students who received
no instruction. In another training study, students who received training in how to
use a computer program to represent a word problem as an on-screen animation
performed better on a subsequent word problem solving test than did students who
practiced solving word problems (Nathan et al. 1992). In short, students benefit
from training aimed at helping them learn to translate a word problem into a
situation model.
Solution Planning and Monitoring: Teaching Students

to Devise Solution Plans
The third cognitive process in Table 4 is planning and monitoring, in which the
student devises a solution plan and keeps track of how well it works during problem
solving. Planning is based on strategic knowledge, that is, general strategies such
as finding a related problem, restating the problem in a different way, and breaking
the problem into subgoals (Mayer 1992, Schoenfeld 1985). When students receive
instruction and practice in how to carry out planning strategies such as these,
they perform better on a subsequent word problem-solving test than subjects who
simply practice solving the problems (Schoenfeld 1985).
Worked-out examples are step-by-step descriptions of how to solve example
problems and are commonly found in mathematics textbooks (Mayer et al. 1995).
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Reed (1999) has shown that students need support in how to use worked-out examples, including verbal explanations for each step and instructions for when to use a
particular worked-out example. Catrambone (1995) has shown that students benefit
when each subgoal is explicitly labeled and explained in worked-out examples.
Students attitudes can influence their problem-solving strategies. Some students believe that word problems are solved by applying meaningless procedures,
which can be stated as follows: Ordinary students cannot expect to understand
mathematics; they expect simply to memorize it and apply what they have learned
mechanically and without understanding (Schoenfeld, 1992, p. 359). For example, many third-grade students believe that all story problems can be solved by
applying the operations suggested by the key words present in the story, e.g., in all
suggests addition, left suggests subtraction, share suggests division (Lester et al.
1989, p. 84). A recent national survey of U.S. mathematics students revealed that
54% of the fourth graders and 40% of the eighth graders thought that the bulk of
mathematics learning consists of memorizing rules (Silver & Kenney 2000).
Verschaffel et al. (2000) have shown how mathematics students from all over
the world often solve math word problems by manipulating symbols without understanding what they are doing. They seek to carry out an arithmetic computation
without trying to make sense of the problem, a strategy that Schoenfeld (1991, p.
316) calls suspension of sense-making. In contrast, a key to successful problem
solving is the development of what can be called a productive disposition, that
is, an inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled
with a belief in diligence and ones self-efficacy (Kilpatrick et al. 2001, p. 5).
Students can learn productive planning strategies by working on realistic math
problems in authentic settings. For example, in the Jasper project, students view a
video that describes an adventure story in which some decisions need to be made
based on mathematical computations (Bransford et al. 1996, Van Haneghan et al.
1992). Students who received practice in developing strategies for solving the
Jasper problems showed larger gains in solving word problems than did matched
students who received regular classroom instruction.
Solution Execution: Teaching Students to Carry

Out Procedures
The fourth process in Table 4 is solution-executing, that is, carrying out a solution
procedure. Solution executing requires procedural knowledge, that is, algorithms
such as how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide (Mayer 1992).
Fuson (1992) has described how childrens skill in solving simple addition
problems (such as 2 + 4 = 6) develops from counting-all procedures (such as
counting 1, 2, pause, 3, 4, 5, 6), to counting-on procedures (such as starting with
2 and then counting on 3, 4, 5, 6), to derived facts procedures (such as I can
take 1 from the 4 and give it to the 2, and I know 3 plus 3 is 6), to known facts
(such as memorizing that 2 plus 4 is 6). For example, Groen & Parkman (1972)
used a reaction-time paradigm to find that most first graders use a counting-on
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procedure for simple addition. Siegler & Jenkins (1989) have shown that primarygrade children have a variety of procedures available for simple addition problems
and select the one that best fits any particular problem. Brown & Burton (1978)
found that students errors in solving three-column subtraction problems occur
because students are correctly applying an incorrect procedurea procedure that
has one or more bugs (incorrect steps) in it.
Students can learn procedures as a meaningless sequence of steps. To help
them understand what they are doing, students need to see how procedures are
related to concrete situations and concepts. For example, concrete manipulatives
are concrete objects used to represent steps in arithmetic procedures, such as using
sticks bundled by tens (English 1997, Resnick & Ford 1981). In a research review, Hiebert & Carpenter (1992, p. 70) concluded the effectiveness of concrete
materials in classrooms have yielded mixed results. More recently, Moreno &
Mayer (1999) found that childrens learning of addition and subtraction of signed
numbers was improved when they played with an educational game that represented the steps visually as a bunny moving along a number line. Schwartz et al.
(1996) found similar improvements in students skills on addition and subtraction
of signed numbers when they practiced using a computer-based image of a train
of various lengths along a number line.
Case and his colleagues (Case & Okamoto 1996; Griffin et al. 1994, 1995) have
shown that skill in applying arithmetic procedures (such as solving the problem
2 + 4 = 6) is linked to the childs conceptual understanding of a mental number
line (as measured by telling which of two numbers is larger, moving a token
along a number line for a specified count, and so on). For example, about 50%
of the students in Cases studies entered school without adequate knowledge of a
mental number line. When students were given 40 short lessons involving explicit
instruction in using a mental number line (such as moving a token along a path for a
specified number of steps in a board game), they showed a great improvement both
in their ability to a use a mental number line (which can be called number sense)
and in their ability to learn arithmetic. In a review, Bruer (1993, p. 90) concludes
for mathematics to be meaningful, conceptual knowledge and procedural skills
have to be interrelated in instruction.
TEACHING OF SCIENCE: THE TASK OF

UNDERSTANDING HOW THINGS WORK
What are the cognitive processes involved in scientific reasoning? According to the
traditional view, science learning involves adding knowledge to memory. In contrast, according to the conceptual change view, science learning involves changing
ones mental model of how something works (Limon & Mason 2002, Posner et al.
1982). A mental model is a cognitive representation of the functional parts of a system and the cause-and-effect relations showing how a change in the state of one part
affects a change in the next one (Gentner & Stevens 1983, Halsford 1993, Mayer
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TABLE 5 Component processes in understanding how a scientific system works

Name
Definition
Recognizing an anomaly
Realizing that ones mental model is flawed
Creating a new model
Mentally constructing a new mental model
Using a new model
Using a mental model to test hypotheses in research
1992). Three important steps in conceptual change are: (a) recognizing an anomaly
(i.e., realizing that ones current mental model is not able to explain the observable
facts), (b) constructing a new model (i.e., creating a model that is able to explain the
observable facts), and (c) using a new model (i.e., making and testing predictions
of the model in new situations). These three processes are summarized in Table 5.
Recognizing an Anomaly: Teaching by

Confronting Misconceptions
The first step in conceptual change is to recognize that ones conception of how
something works does not square with the available data. In short, rather than starting as blank slates, people enter the science classroom with mental models of how
the world works, and often their mental models are incorrect. For example, many
people harbor misconceptions (or preconceptions) about the laws of motion, such
as predicting that a ball shot through a curved tube will continue to curve once it
exits from the tube (McCloskey et al. 1980), an object traveling at a constant speed
over a cliff will continue moving horizontally and then fall straight down (Kaiser
et al. 1985, McCloskey 1983), or that a ball dropped by a running person will
fall straight down (McCloskey 1983). In short, many people believe in impetus
theorythe idea that an object moves only when a force is acting on italthough
school-taught Newtonian theory is that an object continues moving unless a force
acts on it.
Can students be taught to recognize their misconceptions? Clement (1982)
found that a conventional course in physics did little to eliminate students misconceptions. However, Chi (2000) asked some students to engage in self-explanations
as they read a text on how the human heart worksthat is, they explained the text
aloud as they read it. Most students began with a flawed mental model of the heart
that Chi calls the single-loop model, i.e., the idea that the arteries carry blood from
the heart to the body (where oxygen is collected and waste is deposited) and veins
carry blood from the body to the heart (where it is cleaned and reoxygenated). Students who engaged in self-explanations were more likely to recognize that their
mental model conflicted with the information presented in the text, such as the
right side pumps blood to the lungs and the left side pumps blood to other parts of
the body.
In a classroom study, fifth and sixth graders were asked to make predictions,
then take measurements, and explain why the measurements conflicted with their
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predictions (Vosniadou et al. 2001). For example, after trying to pull a heavy table that they could not move, students concluded that no force was acting on the
tableconsistent with impetus theory. However, when they used a dynamometer,
they measured a considerable force being exerted on the table by their pulling. In
the ensuing classroom discussion, students had to reconcile the conflicting information that an object can be nonmoving and still have a force exerted on it. Students
who participated in these kinds of cognitive conflict episodes showed greater improvements in solving physics problems than did nontrained students. Overall,
research on recognizing misconceptions shows that cognitive conflict seems to
be the starting point in the process of conceptual change (Limon 2001, p. 373).
Constructing a New Model: Teaching by Providing

a Concrete Analogy
Once learners recognize that their models are flawed, the next step is to build a
new model (as shown in the second process in Table 5). According to the Posner
et al. (1982) the new model should be intelligible (i.e., the learner understands it),
plausible (i.e., the learner can reconcile the model with the available data and other
knowledge), and fruitful (i.e., the learner can use the model in new situations).
Gentner (1989) proposed that students understand how a new system works by
relating it to a familiar system. For example, Gentner & Gentner (1983) found that
some students understand an electrical circuit is like a water-flow system in which
the wires are like pipes, the electrons are like water, the battery is like a pump, and
the resistor is like a constriction in a pipe.
One way to foster the process of model construction in students is to provide
concrete representations of the model. For example, adding pictorial models to
textbook passages or animated models to online narration helps students understand how various systems work, such as brakes, pumps, lungs, and lightning
storms (Mayer 1989, 2001). In a focused set of studies, students learned Newtons
laws of motion by playing various video games in which a ball could be kicked
in any direction using a joystick (White 1993, White & Frederiksen 1998). In the
microworld called ThinkerTools, the balls behaved in line with the laws of motion, and students were asked to discuss the validity of various possible ways to
describe the laws. Students who participated in the ThinkerTools microworld for
daily 45-minute sessions over a two-month period showed fewer misconceptions
about the physics of motion than did control students. Overall, experience with
familiar, concrete models can help students replace their incorrect mental models.
Using a New Model: Teaching Students How

to Test Hypotheses
The third process in conceptual change is using a new model to make predictions in a new situation (as listed in the third line of Table 5). There is consistent
evidence that high school students have substantial difficulty in two important
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aspects of scientific reasoninggenerating theories and interpreting data. For example, Klahr (2000) asked students to figure out what the RPT button did on a
programmable toy vehicle called BigTrack. They could press any sequence of
buttons on the control panel and then see what the vehicle did. Most children
only considered one theory, ignored conflicting results, and just kept testing the
same theory repeatedly. In a computer-based simulation of a biology experiment
(Dunbar 1993), most students began with a theory and ran experiments intended
to confirm the theory (i.e., they engaged in confirmation bias). When the resulting data conflicted with their theory, most students tended to ignore the results
and they continued to seek to confirm their theory. Kuhn et al. (1988) found that
students were unable to judge whether a piece of data refuted a theory. Other
researchers have shown that most high school students do not systematically test
hypotheses in a way consistent with Piagets formal operations, which is the level of
thinking required for scientific reasoning (Karplus et al. 1979, Lawson & Snitgen
1982).
What can be done to improve students skill in testing hypotheses? When
Lawson & Snitgen (1982) provided direct instruction in how to test hypotheses
for biological theories, students showed substantial improvements in their scores
on tests of scientific thinking. In an exemplary study (Carey et al. 1989), seventh
graders participated in a three-week science unit focusing on scientific thinking,
including intensive investigations on topics such as Why do yeast, flour, sugar,
salt, and warm water produce a gas? Students who participated showed substantial improvements in their beliefs about science and scientific research. Overall,
there is growing evidence that scientific reasoning can be taught (Halpern 1992,
Linn & Hsi 2000).
CONCLUSION
This chapter provides an overview of recent advances in the psychology of subject
matter. The first step is to clearly define a subject matter domain (such as reading
fluency, reading comprehension, writing, mathematics, or science) and within the
domain clearly specify a target task (such as reading a word aloud, comprehending a
paragraph, writing an essay, solving an arithmetic word problem, or understanding
how something works). The next step is to conduct a cognitive task analysis,
specifying the major cognitive processes required to accomplish the task (such as
listed in Tables 1 through 5). Finally, research is needed to determine how people
learn each of the needed cognitive processes, including how to help them learn.
Although the grand learning theories of the early twentieth century have faded
away (Mayer 2001b), researchers have made progress in understanding how people
learn in specific subject areas (Mayer 2002). Research on the psychology of subject
matter is a prime example of the shift from domain-general cognitive theories to
domain-specific cognitive theories. Research on the psychology of subject matter
also exemplifies a shift in research methods for studying how people perform on
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decontextualized sterile laboratory tasks to how people perform on contextualized

realistic tasks. Finally, research on the psychology of subject matter represents
one of educational psychologys greatest success stories. In short, research on how
people learn subject matter has yielded progress in understanding human learning
and cognition.
In closing, I share Shulman & Quinlans (1996, p. 420421) recent assessment
of the field: As we approach the 21st century, we can anticipate the return of the
psychology of school subjects to its former centrality in educational psychology.
However, unlike earlier attempts to study the teaching of school subjects, psychology comes equipped with techniques for analyzing and describing the knowledge
underlying academic performance (Anderson et al. 2001).
AUTHOR NOTE
For an expanded review of this material, see Mayer 2003.
The Annual Review of Psychology is online at http://psych.annualreviews.org
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14:49
Annual Reviews
AR207-FM
Annual Review of Psychology

Volume 55, 2004
CONTENTS
FrontispieceWalter Mischel
xvi
PREFATORY
Toward an Integrative Science of the Person, Walter Mischel
LEARNING AND MEMORY PLASTICITY

On Building a Bridge Between Brain and Behavior, Jeffrey D. Schall
The Neurobiology of Consolidations, Or, How Stable is the Engram?,
Yadin Dudai
23
51
BRAIN IMAGING/COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Understanding Other Minds: Linking Developmental Psychology and
Functional Neuroimaging, R. Saxe, S. Carey, and N. Kanwisher
87
SLEEP
Hypocretin (Orexin): Role in Normal Behavior and Neuropathology,
Jerome M. Siegel
125
SPEECH PERCEPTION
Speech Perception, Randy L. Diehl, Andrew J. Lotto, and Lori L. Holt
149
DEPTH, SPACE, AND MOTION

Visual Mechanisms of Motion Analysis and Motion Perception,
Andrew M. Derrington, Harriet A. Allen, and Louise S. Delicato
181
ATTENTION AND PERFORMANCE

Cumulative Progress in Formal Theories of Attention, Gordon D. Logan
207
MEMORY
The Psychology and Neuroscience of Forgetting, John T. Wixted
235
FORM PERCEPTION AND OBJECT RECOGNITION

Object Perception as Bayesian Inference, Daniel Kersten,
Pascal Mamassian, and Alan Yuille
271
ADULTHOOD AND AGING

Development in Midlife, Margie E. Lachman
305
vii
P1: FDS
December 9, 2003
viii
14:49
Annual Reviews
AR207-FM
CONTENTS
DEVELOPMENT IN SOCIETAL CONTEXT

The Intergenerational Transfer of Psychosocial Risk: Mediators of
Vulnerability and Resilience, Lisa A. Serbin and Jennifer Karp
333
DEVELOPMENT IN THE FAMILY

Development in the Family, Ross D. Parke
365

SCHIZOPHRENIA AND RELATED DISORDERS

Schizophrenia: Etiology and Course, Elaine Walker, Lisa Kestler,
Annie Bollini, and Karen M. Hochman
401
SUBSTANCE ABUSE DISORDERS

Clinical Implications of Reinforcement as a Determinant of Substance
Use Disorders, Stephen T. Higgins, Sarah H. Heil,
and Jennifer Plebani Lussier
431
Motivational Influences on Cigarette Smoking, Timothy B. Baker,

Thomas H. Brandon, and Laurie Chassin
463
INFERENCE, PERSON PERCEPTION, ATTRIBUTION

Self-Knowledge: Its Limits, Value, and Potential for Improvement,
Timothy D. Wilson and Elizabeth W. Dunn
493
GENDER
Gender in Psychology, Abigail J. Stewart and Christa McDermott
519
MASS MEDIA
Mediated Politics and Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century,
Doris Graber
545
NONVERBAL AND VERBAL COMMUNICATION

The Internet and Social Life, John A. Bargh and
Katelyn Y.A. McKenna
573
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Social Influence: Compliance and Conformity, Robert B. Cialdini
and Noah J. Goldstein
591
SMALL GROUPS
Group Performance and Decision Making, Norbert L. Kerr
and R. Scott Tindale
623
PERSONALITY PROCESSES
Creativity, Mark A. Runco
657
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December 9, 2003
14:49
Annual Reviews
AR207-FM
CONTENTS
ix
PSYCHOLOGY AND CULTURE

Psychology and Culture, Darrin R. Lehman, Chi-yue Chiu,
and Mark Schaller
689

Teaching of Subject Matter, Richard E. Mayer
715
PERSONALITY AND COPING STYLES

Coping: Pitfalls and Promise, Susan Folkman and Judith Tedlie Moskowitz
745
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
Survey Research and Societal Change, Roger Tourangeau
Human Research and Data Collection via the Internet,
Michael H. Birnbaum
775
803
INDEXES
Author Index
Subject Index
Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 4555
Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 4555
ERRATA
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Psychology chapters
may be found at http://psych.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml
833
877
921
926

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19 Nov 2003

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004. 55:71544

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara,

Key Words educational psychology, cognitive psychology, learning, instruction,

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Three Views of How to Promote Transfer

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

TEACHING OF READING FLUENCY:

TABLE 1 Component processes in reading a word

Being aware of sound units

Recognizing, producing, and manipulating phonemes

Converting a printed word into sound

Accessing word meaning

Finding a mental representation of the words meaning in

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Being Aware of Sound Units: Insuring Phonological Awareness

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

and reading skills. Similarly, in a review of 52 published studies, Ehri et al.

Decoding Words: Building Automatic Phonics Processing

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

A second way of testing the decoding hypothesis is to teach students how to

Accessing Word Meaning: Fostering a Rich Vocabulary

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

TEACHING OF READING COMPREHENSION:

Using Prior Knowledge: Teaching Readers

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Using prior knowledge

Activating and assimilating to existing schemas

Using prose structure

Distinguishing important and unimportant material

Adding appropriate inferences to the material

Using metacognitive knowledge

Determining whether the passage makes sense

Using Prose Structure: Teaching Readers to Select

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Making Inferences: Teaching Readers to Integrate

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

group showed an improvement in reading comprehension as compared to a control

Using Metacognitive Knowledge: Teaching Readers

TEACHING OF WRITING: THE TASK OF WRITING

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

TABLE 3 Component processes in writing a composition

Remembering or finding relevant information,

Producing printed text on paper or screen

Detecting and correcting errors in the text

Planning: Teaching Writers to Find, Organize,

instructed to engage in planning processesincluding generating, evaluating, and

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Translating: Helping Writers Overcome Cognitive Load

TEACHING OF SUBJECT MATTER

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004.55:715-744. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Reviewing: Helping Writers Detect and Correct Errors

TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS: THE TASK

Problem Translating: Teaching Students to