Background/Context: In this study, we draw on evolving definitions of opportunity to learn (OTL) to conceptualize mathematics OTL has having two main components: structural OTL, defined by gatekeeping access to specific mathematics courses through the process of tracking, and instructional OTL, defined by the learning experiences of students in…

Widely prevalent in a variety of educational contexts around the world, rote learning practices entail repetition techniques to acquire new knowledge. These practices have long been critiqued because of the emphasis on recall rather than deep understanding. Less attention has been directed, however, at the literacy ideologies underpinning such…

This study assessed the extent to which executive functions (EF), according to their factor structure in 5-year-olds (N = 244), influenced early quantity-number competencies, arithmetic fluency, and mathematics school achievement throughout first and second grades. A confirmatory factor analysis resulted in updating as a first, and inhibition and…

High student achievement across East Asia is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, stress-inducing college entrance exams across the region. This 'exam hell' drives students to study longer and harder than their peers worldwide, a race that leads--unsurprisingly--to higher marks in international comparisons such as the Programme for…

Deficit theorisations of Chinese Learners studying in western countries are criticised for dichotomising learning attributes into Surface- or Deep-learning approaches. Subsequent context-dependent, small culture studies of students transiting between cultures theorise learning as a dynamic journey of adapting to a range/continuum of learning…

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how complexity, accuracy and fluency interact in early L2 development, when learners' linguistic means are underdeveloped. Learners then resort to rote-learned formulaic sequences to complement their current grammar when it is unable to meet their communicative needs. The interplay between their…

Results of a longitudinal study of seven children under age two suggest that variation in children's early word combinations can be explained in terms of different routes to multiword speech; and a strategy involving the breaking down of originally unanalyzed phrases may be used by all children in varying degrees. (Contains 22 references.)…

Emerging from a human constructivist view of learning and a punctuated model of conceptual change, these studies explored differences in the structural complexity and content validity of knowledge about prehistoric life depicted in concept maps by learners ranging in age from approximately 10 to 20 years. Study 1 (cross-age) explored the…

Investigates the role in learning of rote-learned formulas or chunks. Data were examined from a longitudinal study of 16 child beginner classroom learners of French for occurrences of three chunks, against which definitional criteria were tried out. These forms were then tracked for two years to chart their breakdown and explore their contribution…