Research evidence for our Mastery Practice Books

Our Mastery Practice Books are carefully designed to help students learn how to apply science knowledge to unfamiliar problems. Applying what you’ve learned is one of the hardest things to master in science—and one of the most important. That’s why each chapter builds students’ confidence by guiding them through worked examples, prompting them to reflect, and giving them opportunities to practise and transfer their learning in varied situations.

The pedagogy is grounded in evidence from cognitive science and educational psychology about how students develop problem-solving skills, deepen their understanding, and successfully transfer learning to new contexts.

1. Worked examples with self-explanation prompts

Each topic begins with a carefully structured example that models expert thinking. We include prompts in speech bubbles to encourage self-explanation—one of the most well-evidenced strategies for helping students make sense of what they’re learning and why it works.

Research shows that self-explaining worked examples helps students notice the deep structure of problems, organise knowledge, and build mental models for future use.

2. Structured practice with varied examples

After the example, students tackle a very similar “Your Turn” question, followed by further questions that vary the context. This sequence—near to far transfer—gives students a scaffolded path to apply what they’ve learned in new and more challenging ways.

By practising with examples that gradually differ in surface features but share underlying principles, students strengthen their ability to recognise when and how to use core ideas.

3. The 'Detect, Recall, Solve strategy

Each problem-solving sequence supports a three-part thinking routine: Detect what the question is really asking, Recall what you know that’s relevant, and Solve using that knowledge step-by-step. This routine helps students activate prior knowledge and apply it deliberately.

Explicit problem-solving strategies improve transfer, especially when students learn how to recognise cues that signal which knowledge to use.

Hints and feedback to support learning from mistakes

If students get stuck, they’re encouraged to use hints and check their answers. The emphasis is on learning from errors and developing persistence—building the metacognitive habits needed for independent problem solving.

Feedback and reflection help students refine their understanding and develop flexible thinking, especially when linked to their own reasoning process.

Research links

  • Chi, M. T. H. et al. (1989). Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13(2).

  • Renkl, A. (2014). Toward an instructionally oriented theory of example-based learning. Cognitive Science.

  • Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J., & Paas, F. G. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review.

  • Salomon, G., & Perkins, D. N. (1989). Rocky roads to transfer: Rethinking mechanisms of a neglected phenomenon. Educational Psychologist.

  • National Academies of Sciences. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures.