We explore 11-12-year-old students' emerging ideas of models and modelling as they engage in a data-modelling task involving inquiry based on data obtained from an experiment. We report on a design-based study in which students identified what and how to measure, decided how to structure and represent data, and made inferences and predictions…

This research empirically evaluates data sets from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for design effects of ignoring the sampling design in weighted two-level analyses. Currently, researchers may ignore the sampling design beyond the levels that they model which might result in incorrect inferences regarding hypotheses due to…

Many theories of human cognition postulate that people are equipped with a repertoire of strategies to solve the tasks they face. This theoretical framework of a cognitive toolbox provides a plausible account of intra- and interindividual differences in human behavior. Unfortunately, it is often unclear how to rigorously test the toolbox…

Using a new method for studying the development of false-memory formation, we examined developmental differences in the rates at which 6-, 7-, 9-, 10-, and 18-year-olds made two types of memory errors: backward causal-inference errors (i.e. falsely remembering having viewed the non-viewed cause of a previously viewed effect), and gap-filling…

This study examined whether the formation of a situation model can be encouraged by a situation-focused instruction in primary school children. To achieve this, the standard reading-for-comprehension instruction was adapted so that it would emphasise the importance of imagination in narrative text comprehension. The results showed that the…

We report a new study testing our proposal that word learning may be best explained as an approximate form of Bayesian inference (Xu & Tenenbaum, in press). Children are capable of learning word meanings across a wide range of communicative contexts. In different contexts, learners may encounter different sampling processes generating the examples…

A connectionist model of causal attribution is presented, emphasizing the use of domain-general principles of processing and learning previously employed in models of semantic cognition. The model categorizes objects dependent upon their observed 'causal properties' and is capable of making several types of inferences that 4-year-old children have…

False recognition in children aged 5, 8, and 11 years was investigated using the standard version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) procedure and an alternative version in which the DRM stimuli were embedded in stories designed to emphasize their overall theme. Relative to the 8- and 11-year-olds, the 5-year-olds falsely recognized fewer…

Psychologists know that reasoning human beings do not spontaneously follow the rules of formal logic when using implication. Addressing this phenomenon, Piaget employed the concept of "significant implication," which exists when the meaning of a subsequent proposition is "included" in the meaning of an earlier one, and is not…

Suggests an account of transitivity and transitive inferential reasoning differing from classic Piagetian and current information processing accounts. Postulates a three-component psychological system, with components relying on perceptual, linguistic, and conceptual subprocesses and sensitivity to simple cues. Maintains that the framework is…