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,…

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…

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…

The purpose of this study was to see if a relationship existed between American College Testing (ACT) scores (i.e., English, reading, mathematics, science reasoning, and composite) and student success in a computer applications course at a Mississippi community college. The study showed that while the ACT scores were excellent predictors of…

Post-problem reflective tutorial dialogues between human tutors and students are examined to predict when the tutor changed the level of abstraction from the student's preceding turn (i.e., used more general terms or more specific terms); such changes correlate with learning. Prior work examined lexical changes in abstraction. In this work, we…

In this educational study, the research problem was that each semester a variable number of community college students are unable to complete an introductory computer applications course at a community college in the state of Mississippi with a successful course letter grade. Course failure, or non-success, at the collegiate level is a negative…

The 21st-century work environment places strong emphasis on nonroutine transversal skills. In an educational context, complex problem solving (CPS) is generally considered an important transversal skill that includes knowledge acquisition and its application in new and interactive situations. The dynamic and interactive nature of CPS requires a…

Analogous thinking has been commonly discussed as being an inherent and distinguishing characteristic of human cognition (e.g., Gentner, 2010; Goldstone, Day, & Son, 2010; Holyoak, in press; Rittle-Johnson & Star, in press). Gentner (2003) has argued that as part of the human cognitive toolbox, comparison accompanied by the relational language to…