Purpose: Nonnative consonant cluster learning has become a useful experimental approach for learning about speech motor learning, and we sought to enhance our understanding of this area and to establish best practices for this type of research. Method: One hundred twenty individuals completed a nonnative consonant cluster learning task within a…

We used the timing of serial recall in several situations to reveal important aspects of recall groupings that participants construct and the reasons those groupings occur. We examined the timing of responses in the recall of digit strings within two published experiments. Cowan, Saults, Elliott, and Moreno (2002) examined memory for nine-item…

The main challenge in higher education is student retention. While many methods have been proposed to overcome this challenge, early and continuous feedback can be very effective. In this article, we propose a method for predicting student final grades in a course using only their performance data in the current semester. It assists students in…

Open-ended learning environments (OELEs) allow students to freely interact with the content and to discover important principles and concepts of the learning domain on their own. However, only some students possess the necessary skills for efficient and effective exploration. Guidance in the form of targeted interventions or feedback therefore has…

User clustering algorithms have been introduced to analyze users' learning behaviors and help to provide personalized learning guides in traditional Web-based learning systems. However, the explicit and implicit coupled interactions, which means the correlations between user attributes generated from learning actions, are not considered in these…

Automatic coding of short text responses opens new doors in assessment. We implemented and integrated baseline methods of natural language processing and statistical modelling by means of software components that are available under open licenses. The accuracy of automatic text coding is demonstrated by using data collected in the "Programme…

Experimental evaluations that involve the educational system usually involve a hierarchical structure (students are nested within classrooms that are nested within schools, etc.). Concerns about contamination, where research subjects receive certain features of an intervention intended for subjects in a different experimental group, have often led…

As we were aware of the confusing and wide-ranging disciplinary and individual positions on the importance of theory in research, this study sought to determine how thesis examiners emphasised theory in their reports in order to inform candidate learning. While references to theory were not prominent in reports, examiner comment coalesced into six…

This study investigates measurement decision theory (MDT) as an underlying model for computer adaptive testing when the goal is to classify examinees into one of a finite number of groups. The first analysis compares MDT with a popular item response theory model and finds little difference in terms of the percentage of correct classifications. The…