One obstacle to understanding abstract concepts such as the "control of variables" strategy (CVS) is the tendency for learners to focus on surface rather than deep features in instructional materials. However, in tasks such as learning CVS, these same surface features may also support understanding, provided learners realize the…

The purpose of this study was to highlight the role of twin designs in understanding children's conversational interactions. Specifically, we (a) attempted to replicate the findings of genetic effects on children's conversational language use reported in DeThorne et al. (2008), and (b) examined whether the language used by examiners in their…

The problem investigated in this research study relates to the referral rate for special education evaluations between students of teachers who were exposed to the professional development and resources associated with the federally funded Reading First program and students of teachers who were not exposed to the program. The purpose of this study…

Effort on homework has a profound impact on student achievement. Researchers typically use an interindividual research design to explain homework effort. In this study with a total of 511 students from Grades 8 and 9, an interindividual perspective (focus on between-students differences) was combined with an intraindividual perspective (focus on…