The focus of this book is to explore teachers' evolving personal epistemologies, or the beliefs we hold about the origin and development of knowledge in the context of teaching. The chapters focus on a range of conceptual frameworks about how university and field?based experiences influence the connections between teachers' personal epistemologies and teaching practice. In an earlier volume we investigated preservice and inservice teachers' beliefs and teaching practices (Brownlee, Schraw and Berthelsen, 2011). While we addressed the nature of teachers' personal epistemologies, learning and teaching practices, and approaches for changing beliefs throughout teacher education programs, the volume did not address conceptual frameworks for the development of teacher's personal epistemologies. To address this gap, the book is focused on teacher educators, teachers and teacher education programmers in universities with an overall aim of highlighting how we might support preservice teachers' involvement in learning that is challenging and inservice teachers' engagement in professional experiences that promote changes in teaching practice. We argue that teachers need to be encouraged to question their beliefs and develop increasingly sophisticated beliefs about their knowledge and their students' knowledge that facilitate learning and intellectual growth.

A volume in Current Perspectives on Cognition, Learning, and Instruction Series Editors Daniel H. Robinson, University of Texas and Gregory Schraw, University of Nevada at Las Vegas Founding Editor James M. Royer, University of Massachusetts The field of educational technology is exploding in terms of innovations being developed daily. Most of these innovations hold fascinating promise but enjoy almost no empirical support. There are educational researchers who have both developed innovations and tested their potential empirically. This book will capture the latest and most promising innovations from the leading educational technologists in the world, including animations, simulations, visualizations, navigation, manipulatives, pedagogical agents, and assessment. This book is appropriate for university courses in educational technology for those wishing to showcase the latest innovations that are accompanied by empirical support.

The purpose of the volume is to explore the theory, development and use of visual displays and graphic organizers to improve instruction, learning and research. We anticipate five sections that address (1) frameworks for understanding different types of displays, (2) research-tested guidelines for constructing displays, (3) empirically-based instructional applications, (4) using displays to promote research and theory development, and (5) using displays to report test and research data to improve consumer understanding. Authors represent a variety of perspectives and areas of expertise, including instructional psychology, information technology, and research methodologies. The volume is divided into four sections. Section 1 provides a conceptual overview of previous research, as well as the contents of the current volume. Section 2 includes theoretical perspectives on the design and instructional uses of visual displays from major theorists in the field. These chapters discuss ways that visual displays enhance general cognition and information processing. Section 3 provides eight chapters that address the use of visual displays to enhance student learning. These chapters provide examples of how to organize content and use visual displays in a variety of ways in the real and virtual classroom. Section 4 includes three chapters that discuss ways that visual displays may enhance the research process, but especially improved data display.

Creative problem solving, collaboration, and technology fluency are core skills requisite of any nation's workforce that strives to be competitive in the 21st Century. Teaching these types of skills is an economic imperative, and assessment is a fundamental component of any pedagogical program. Yet, measurement of these skills is complex due to the interacting factors associated with higher order thinking and multifaceted communication. Advances in assessment theory, educational psychology, and technology create an opportunity to innovate new methods of measuring students' 21st Century Skills with validity, reliability, and scalability. In this book, leading scholars from multiple disciplines present their latest research on how to best measure complex knowledge, skills, and abilities using technology-based assessments. All authors discuss theoretical and practical implications from their research and outline their visions for the future of technology-based assessments.

Why do people from similar backgrounds who read the same text construct different meanings? Is there a question behind every reading goal, such that reading is an interactive process of asking and answering of questions? Do people who believe that knowledge is dynamic construct meaning differently than those who believe that knowledge is certain? This volume addresses questions such as these and presents cutting edge research and theory that explores how readers determine text relevance (i.e., the different values they assign to information as they read), how relevance affects understanding, and the implications of these studies for theories of text comprehension. This volume documents in a compelling manner the ongoing international effort to understand how text relevance affects reading and comprehension. Contributing authors represent major academic institutions on three continents and nine countries, demonstrating the multinational interest in text relevance. Why is there so much interest in text relevance? Learners are inundated with unprecedented amounts of information, and increased research regarding how readers process non-traditional texts (e.g., documents on the web) and multiple documents, for example, underscores the importance of understanding how readers determine the relevance of text information for personal, academic, or professional goals, which can enable educators to design learning situations that help learners get the most out of reading. CONTENTS: Relevance in Text Comprehension

A volume in Current Perspectives on Cognition, Learning, and Instruction Series Editors Gregory Schraw, University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Daniel H. Robinson, The University of Texas at Austin This volume examines the assessment of higher order thinking skills from the perspectives of applied cognitive psychology and measurement theory. The volume considers a variety of higher order thinking skills, including problem solving, critical thinking, argumentation, decision making, creativity, metacognition, and self-regulation Fourteen chapters by experts in learning and measurement comprise four sections which address conceptual approaches to understanding higher order thinking skills, cognitively oriented assessment models, thinking in the content domains, and practical assessment issues. The volume discusses models of thinking skills, as well as applied issues related to the construction, validation, administration and scoring of perfomancebased, selected-response, and constructed-response assessments. The goal of the volume is to promote a better theoretical understanding of higher order thinking in order to facilitate instruction and assessment of those skills among students in all K-12 content domains, as well as professional licensure and cetification settings.

Visual displays play a crucial role in knowledge generation and communication. The purpose of the volume is to provide researchers with a framework that helps them use visual displays to organize and interpret data; and to communicate their findings in a comprehensible way within different research (e.g., quantitative, mixed methods) and testing traditions that improves the presentation and understanding of findings. Further, this book includes contributions from leading scholars in testing and quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, and results reporting. The volume's focal question is: What are the best principles and practices for the use of visual displays in the research and testing process, which broadly includes the analysis, organization, interpretation, and communication of data? The volume is organized into four sections. Section I provides a rationale for this volume; namely, that including visual displays in research and testing can enhance comprehension and processing efficiency. Section II includes addresses theoretical frameworks and universal design principles for visual displays. Section III examines the use of visual displays in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Section IV focuses on using visual displays to report testing and assessment data.

Personal Epistemology and Teacher Education, edited by Joanne Brownlee, Gregg Schraw and Donna Berthelsen, provides an international perspective on teachers? personal epistemology, or beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. Research from The Netherlands, Cyprus, Australia, United States, Canada, Norway, and Taiwan is presented to provide diverse viewpoints on personal epistemology for early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary teaching contexts.

The text provides a platform for cutting-edge theory and research about how personal epistemology can be applied to the context of teacher education, thereby making explicit the connection between personal epistemology and teaching and students? learning outcomes.

Topics include:

• Cultural differences in teacher epistemology and the impact on students? learning
• Teachers? epistemological beliefs and inclusion
• Teachers? epistemology and reading lessons, citizenship education, and teaching science
• Epistemology in a social context
• Teachers? epistemological beliefs and student autonomy
• Teacher education and analysis of preservice and practicing teachers
• Implications of teachers? epistemological beliefs
• Connections to future practice

Teacher education and teacher behaviours are fore-grounded across the topics, with an emphasis on the origin and composition of teachers? epistemological beliefs and how universities motivate change through formal teacher education. Teaching behaviours are discussed in relation to how teachers? beliefs are related to the curricular and pedagogical choices that they make in their classrooms, assessment of learning outcomes, and classroom management practices.

Personal Epistemology and Teacher Education, edited by Joanne Brownlee, Gregg Schraw and Donna Berthelsen, provides an international perspective on teachers' personal epistemology, or beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. Research from The Netherlands, Cyprus, Australia, United States, Canada, Norway, and Taiwan is presented to provide diverse viewpoints on personal epistemology for early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary teaching contexts. The text provides a platform for cutting-edge theory and research about how personal epistemology can be applied to the context of teacher education, thereby making explicit the connection between personal epistemology and teaching and students' learning outcomes. Topics include: Cultural differences in teacher epistemology and the impact on students' learning Teachers' epistemological beliefs and inclusion Teachers' epistemology and reading lessons, citizenship education, and teaching science Epistemology in a social context Teachers' epistemological beliefs and student autonomy Teacher education and analysis of preservice and practicing teachers Implications of teachers' epistemological beliefs Connections to future practice Teacher education and teacher behaviours are fore-grounded across the topics, with an emphasis on the origin and composition of teachers' epistemological beliefs and how universities motivate change through formal teacher education. Teaching behaviours are discussed in relation to how teachers' beliefs are related to the curricular and pedagogical choices that they make in their classrooms, assessment of learning outcomes, and classroom management practices.

The focus of this book is to explore teachers' evolving personal epistemologies, or the beliefs we hold about the origin and development of knowledge in the context of teaching. The chapters focus on a range of conceptual frameworks about how university and field?based experiences influence the connections between teachers' personal epistemologies and teaching practice. In an earlier volume we investigated preservice and inservice teachers' beliefs and teaching practices (Brownlee, Schraw and Berthelsen, 2011). While we addressed the nature of teachers' personal epistemologies, learning and teaching practices, and approaches for changing beliefs throughout teacher education programs, the volume did not address conceptual frameworks for the development of teacher's personal epistemologies. To address this gap, the book is focused on teacher educators, teachers and teacher education programmers in universities with an overall aim of highlighting how we might support preservice teachers' involvement in learning that is challenging and inservice teachers' engagement in professional experiences that promote changes in teaching practice. We argue that teachers need to be encouraged to question their beliefs and develop increasingly sophisticated beliefs about their knowledge and their students' knowledge that facilitate learning and intellectual growth.

Visual displays play a crucial role in knowledge generation and communication. The purpose of the volume is to provide researchers with a framework that helps them use visual displays to organize and interpret data; and to communicate their findings in a comprehensible way within different research (e.g., quantitative, mixed methods) and testing traditions that improves the presentation and understanding of findings. Further, this book includes contributions from leading scholars in testing and quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, and results reporting. The volume's focal question is: What are the best principles and practices for the use of visual displays in the research and testing process, which broadly includes the analysis, organization, interpretation, and communication of data? The volume is organized into four sections. Section I provides a rationale for this volume; namely, that including visual displays in research and testing can enhance comprehension and processing efficiency. Section II includes addresses theoretical frameworks and universal design principles for visual displays. Section III examines the use of visual displays in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Section IV focuses on using visual displays to report testing and assessment data.

The purpose of the volume is to explore the theory, development and use of visual displays and graphic organizers to improve instruction, learning and research. We anticipate five sections that address (1) frameworks for understanding different types of displays, (2) research-tested guidelines for constructing displays, (3) empirically-based instructional applications, (4) using displays to promote research and theory development, and (5) using displays to report test and research data to improve consumer understanding. Authors represent a variety of perspectives and areas of expertise, including instructional psychology, information technology, and research methodologies. The volume is divided into four sections. Section 1 provides a conceptual overview of previous research, as well as the contents of the current volume. Section 2 includes theoretical perspectives on the design and instructional uses of visual displays from major theorists in the field. These chapters discuss ways that visual displays enhance general cognition and information processing. Section 3 provides eight chapters that address the use of visual displays to enhance student learning. These chapters provide examples of how to organize content and use visual displays in a variety of ways in the real and virtual classroom. Section 4 includes three chapters that discuss ways that visual displays may enhance the research process, but especially improved data display.

Why do people from similar backgrounds who read the same text construct different meanings? Is there a question behind every reading goal, such that reading is an interactive process of asking and answering of questions? Do people who believe that knowledge is dynamic construct meaning differently than those who believe that knowledge is certain? This volume addresses questions such as these and presents cutting edge research and theory that explores how readers determine text relevance (i.e., the different values they assign to information as they read), how relevance affects understanding, and the implications of these studies for theories of text comprehension. This volume documents in a compelling manner the ongoing international effort to understand how text relevance affects reading and comprehension. Contributing authors represent major academic institutions on three continents and nine countries, demonstrating the multinational interest in text relevance. Why is there so much interest in text relevance? Learners are inundated with unprecedented amounts of information, and increased research regarding how readers process non-traditional texts (e.g., documents on the web) and multiple documents, for example, underscores the importance of understanding how readers determine the relevance of text information for personal, academic, or professional goals, which can enable educators to design learning situations that help learners get the most out of reading.

A volume in Current Perspectives on Cognition, Learning, and Instruction Series Editors Gregory Schraw, University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Daniel H. Robinson, The University of Texas at Austin This volume examines the assessment of higher order thinking skills from the perspectives of applied cognitive psychology and measurement theory. The volume considers a variety of higher order thinking skills, including problem solving, critical thinking, argumentation, decision making, creativity, metacognition, and self-regulation Fourteen chapters by experts in learning and measurement comprise four sections which address conceptual approaches to understanding higher order thinking skills, cognitively oriented assessment models, thinking in the content domains, and practical assessment issues. The volume discusses models of thinking skills, as well as applied issues related to the construction, validation, administration and scoring of perfomancebased, selected-response, and constructed-response assessments. The goal of the volume is to promote a better theoretical understanding of higher order thinking in order to facilitate instruction and assessment of those skills among students in all K-12 content domains, as well as professional licensure and cetification settings.

Creative problem solving, collaboration, and technology fluency are core skills requisite of any nation's workforce that strives to be competitive in the 21st Century. Teaching these types of skills is an economic imperative, and assessment is a fundamental component of any pedagogical program. Yet, measurement of these skills is complex due to the interacting factors associated with higher order thinking and multifaceted communication. Advances in assessment theory, educational psychology, and technology create an opportunity to innovate new methods of measuring students' 21st Century Skills with validity, reliability, and scalability. In this book, leading scholars from multiple disciplines present their latest research on how to best measure complex knowledge, skills, and abilities using technology-based assessments. All authors discuss theoretical and practical implications from their research and outline their visions for the future of technology-based assessments.

A volume in Current Perspectives on Cognition, Learning, and Instruction Series Editors Daniel H. Robinson, University of Texas and Gregory Schraw, University of Nevada at Las Vegas Founding Editor James M. Royer, University of Massachusetts The field of educational technology is exploding in terms of innovations being developed daily. Most of these innovations hold fascinating promise but enjoy almost no empirical support. There are educational researchers who have both developed innovations and tested their potential empirically. This book will capture the latest and most promising innovations from the leading educational technologists in the world, including animations, simulations, visualizations, navigation, manipulatives, pedagogical agents, and assessment. This book is appropriate for university courses in educational technology for those wishing to showcase the latest innovations that are accompanied by empirical support.