The belief that studying mathematics improves reasoning skills, known as the Theory of Formal Discipline (TFD), has been held since the time of Plato. Research evidence supports this idea, at least in the context of students who had chosen to study post-compulsory mathematics. Here we examined the development of reasoning skills in 16- to…

This study investigates how mediated learning designed to improve peer cooperation within activity-based problem solving tasks influences cooperative learning outcomes. Two groups (n = 22) of Year 8 students (mean age 13 +/- 5 months) were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. The study began with two one-hour sessions of…

Introduction: Computers and other technological instruments in general have become a more common practice in our schools nowadays, and Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has been recently provided in various formats from kindergartens on. It can help children at-risk for learning disabilities. Method: This study investigated the effectiveness of…

This study explores task-based, synchronous oral computer-mediated communication (CMC) among intermediate-level learners of Spanish. In particular, this paper examines (a) how learners in video and audio CMC groups negotiate for meaning during task-based interaction, (b) possible differences between both oral CMC modes and traditional face-to-face…

In general terms automaticity could be defined as the subconscious condition wherein "we perform a complex series of tasks very quickly and efficiently, without having to think about the various components and subcomponents of action involved" (DeKeyser 2001: 125). For language learning, Segalowitz (2003) characterised automaticity as a…

The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the influence of a cup stacking instructional unit on the hand-eye coordination of children. Participants (N = 104) consisted of three grade level groups (first/second, third and fourth). Within each grade level participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group.…

In this paper the effect of interaction between learners of English as a second language during a dictogloss task on the acquisition of the passive form is investigated. Subjects were 34 Dutch high school students in their fifth year of English. The experimental group was given two dictogloss tasks, which consisted in the reconstruction in small…

This article reviews previous studies of the effects of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on SLA, pointing out a number of methodological problems. It then reports on a new study of the effects of these two types of corrective feedback on the acquisition of past tense -ed. In an experimental design (two experimental groups and a control…