Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting-edge work on second language learning, this "Handbook," written by a team of leading experts, surveys the nature of second language learning and its implications for teaching. Prominent theories and methods from linguistics, psycholinguistics, processing-based, and cognitive approaches are…

Executive function (EF) skills are the attention-regulation skills that make it possible to sustain attention, keep goals and information in mind, refrain from responding immediately, resist distraction, tolerate frustration, consider the consequences of different behaviors, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future. As EF research…

Our research in statistical cognition uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. A mixed method approach makes our research more comprehensive, and provides us with new directions, unexpected insights, and alternative explanations for previously established concepts. In this paper, we review four statistical cognition studies that used mixed…

This monograph presents research findings from a series of 11 studies conducted in grades 5 through 10 on the role of games in learning mathematics. The first chapter considers "What is learning from a game?" and includes two examples of mathematical instructional games, with a definition of such games, cognitive effects, game-related…

This paper reviews major stidues in metacognitive research relating to education and discusses their implications for educators and teacher education. Metacognition generally refers to self-awareness, or self knowledge of one's thought processes. Two types of research are discussed: (1) descriptive or correlational data on the natural development…

Varying approaches to mathematics were raised in a Philosophy of Mathematics course. Students were asked which foundational schools they preferred and these preferences were compared with scores on hemispheric tests. The results indicate that preferences may be related to the brain's hemispheres. (MNS)

The conceptual difference between understanding and algorithmic performance is examined first. Then some dilemmas that flow from these distinctions are discussed. (MNS)

Fifty Brazilian children aged seven-13 were individually given addition and subtraction exercises. Counting was the preferred procedure, with use of school-taught algorithms limited. Some children decomposed numbers into tens and units and then worked at both levels. They rarely referred to previous results when doing related exercises. (MNS)

Twenty-nine students in grades four, six, and eight were asked to find solutions to fraction equivalence problems and to verify their solutions using discrete material. Discontinuities were observed between strategies students used for producing solutions and supporting knowledge grounded in physical reality. (Author/MNS)

This chapter from a longer work concerns the ability of children to solve arithmetic word problems. The studies reviewed suggest that, with age, children's improved ability to solve word problems primarily involves an increase in the complexity of conceptual knowledge required to understand the situations described in those problems. Considered in…

The mental activities involving functions were studied with 60 children aged 4-15. Search strategies used for solving a problem reveal different stages toward the discovery of the monotonic property, which correspond to stages of proportional reasoning found by Piaget. Dependence between stage and age is confirmed. (Author/MNS)

Included are a general introduction to the topic of metacognition, a discussion of how metacognition is involved in mathematical performance, and a short section on metacognition and instruction. (MNS)

The paper discusses alternative research approaches to special education including positivist case studies, the interpretivist approach in general, and three variations within interpretivist anthropology--traditional ethnography, microethnography, and the study of everyday cognition. (DB)

Four experiments investigated college students' judgments of inter-event contingency. Subjects were asked to judge the effect of a discrete response (tapping a wire) on the occurrence of a brief outcome (a radio's buzzing). Pairings of the possible event-state combinations were presented in a summary table, an unbroken time line, or a broken time…

This study examined the links students are able to make between formal expressions and situations to which they might refer. Students' understanding of a basic set of transformational rules in elementary algebra sign changes in addition and subtraction expressions with parentheses was assessed, exploring: (1) informal intuitive understanding of…