Despite the recognized importance of addressing belief bias in critical thinking, little is known about the neural activity underlying belief-bias reasoning and its connection to critical thinking. The study utilized event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the neural responses during belief-bias reasoning and explored the extent to which these…

The purpose of this study was to test predictability of environmental moral reasoning patterns of preservice science teachers (PSTs) by their epistemological beliefs and values. Four environmental moral dilemma scenarios that reflect different environmental moral dilemma situations taking place in four outdoor recreation contexts (i.e., hiking,…

Background: Psychological misconceptions permeate our culture, with many people endorsing these erroneous beliefs. Objective: The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous findings that reported psychology knowledge and cognitive thinking style predict undergraduates' beliefs in psychological misconceptions. Method: Two hundred…

This study investigated the unique role of nonverbal reasoning in early English word decoding for native Chinese-speaking children across three studies. In Study 1, 80 Grade 1 and 2 participants completed assessments including nonverbal reasoning tests, English pseudoword reading, Chinese character reading, Chinese phonological awareness (CPA),…

Fluid intelligence and conscientiousness are important predictors of students' academic performance and competence gains. Although their individual contributions have been widely acknowledged, less is known about their potential interplay. Do students profit disproportionately from being both smart and conscientious? We addressed this question…

This study aims to examine whether there is a relationship between abstract thinking skills, self-efficacy perceptions and attitude towards mathematics and how these variables predict mathematics achievement. The study was conducted with 198 eighth-grade students who were selected by random sampling and the relational screening model was used. For…

This study aims to investigate the relationship between learning styles and the efficacy of routine and non-routine problem solving. It also compares these relationships with respect to routine and non-routine problem types. The study sample consisted of 356 eighth-grade students in four different schools. In this study, correlational and…

Impaired insight is common in schizophrenia. Etiological models focusing on single determinants have not succeeded in explaining insight deficits. More complex models seem promising. This study tests Startup's (1996) model of insight and cognition, predicting a curvilinear relationship and specific insight-cognition configurations. Patients with…

Understanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students--physics problem solving--to characterize the underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module…

We examined subjects' ability to judge the soundness of informal arguments. The argument claims matched or did not match subject beliefs. In all experiments subjects indicated beliefs about spanking and television violence in a prescreening. Subjects read one-sentence arguments consisting of a claim followed by a reason and then judged the…

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to make inferences about mental states. Thus far, little research has examined ToM development in middle childhood. Importantly, recent studies have distinguished between making inferences about beliefs (cognitive ToM) and emotions (affective ToM). ToM has also been associated with executive functioning,…

Students' explanations of their mathematical thinking and conclusions have become a greater part of the assessment landscape in recent years. With a sample of 71 fourth-grade students at risk for mathematics learning disabilities, we investigated the relation between student accuracy in comparing the magnitude of fractions and the quality of…

The aim of this study is to develop a self-efficacy measuring tool that can predict the computational thinking skill that is seen as one of the 21st century's skills. According to literature review, an item pool was established and expert opinion was consulted for the created item pool. The study group of this study consists of 319 students…

A critical component of scientific reasoning is the consideration of alternative explanations. Recognizing that decades of cognitive psychology research have demonstrated that relative cognitive accessibility, or "what comes to mind," strongly affects how people reason in a given context, we articulate a simple "cognitive…

The United States produces too few Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduates to meet demand. We investigated scientific reasoning ability as a possible factor in STEM retention. To do this, we classified students in introductory biology courses at a large private university as either declared STEM or non-STEM majors and…