The jigsaw classroom is a cooperative learning method designed in the late 1970s to improve the academic performance of minority children by reducing intergroup conflict and increasing self-evaluations. Despite its high popularity, the available evidence for the effectiveness of this method seems scant and mixed, with neither meta-analysis nor systematic review. To fill this gap, the authors conducted a systematic review of studies conducted from 1978 through 2022 to assess the effects of jigsaw on both academic performance and psychosocial variables (e.g., intergroup relationships, self-evaluations). Sixty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria. This review revealed the research trends, research gaps, and issues of research integrity of the jigsaw literature. If the results indicate that the jigsaw classroom overall leads to positive effects, findings vary depending on the academic subjects and psychosocial variables measured. The authors discuss the challenges of jigsaw activities and the limitations of studies reviewed and conclude with practical recommendations in the context of digital education.

In this longitudinal study, we aimed at determining whether children who efficiently use finger counting are more likely to develop internalized arithmetic strategies than children who are less efficient. More precisely, we analyzed the behavior of 24 kindergarteners aged between 5 and 6 years who used their fingers to solve addition problems, and we were interested in determining the evolution of their finger counting strategies towards mental strategies after 2 years (Grade 2). Our results show that kindergarteners who were the most proficient in calculating on fingers were the more likely to have abandoned this strategy in Grade 2. This shows that the use of efficient finger counting strategies early during development optimizes the shift to mental strategies later on during school years. Moreover, children who still use their fingers to solve additions in Grade 2 present lower working memory capacities than children who had already abandoned this strategy.

We investigated how young and older adults differ in sensorimotor tasks. Two groups of participants (young and older adults) performed discrete Fitts' tasks in which 4 levels of difficulty (ID) were used, resulting from either the manipulation of the size of the target (ID(W)) or of the distance between home and target positions (ID(D)). Kinematic analysis allowed distinguishing 4 different types of strategies used to reach the target, on the basis of the existence and the nature of submovements. Results showed that the repertoire of strategies was significantly smaller in older than in young participants. In addition, the frequency of use of the different strategies varied with participants' age. Specifically, the most frequent strategies used by older participants included submovements, while those used by young participants did not include submovements. The differences observed between young and older adults were independent of whether ID was manipulated via target size or movement distance. Finally, age-related differences in strategy performance were found. These results have important implications for furthering our understanding of aging effects in sensorimotor tasks. They also illustrate the usefulness of a strategy approach in a domain where it had never been formally used before.