This paper describes a classroom demonstration that showcases how pre-existing beliefs (e.g., stereotypes) influence problem-solving. Across four studies, participants solved riddles with gender stereotype-consistent (e.g. doctor is male) or gender stereotype-inconsistent (e.g., doctor is female; barber is female) solutions. Solve time, perceived…

To increase student engagement, many universities are adopting high-impact educational practices that include study abroad opportunities, faculty mentoring, internships, service learning, challenging coursework, and research experiences; these institutions are also intentionally promoting high-impact cocurricular activities such as community…

Many college students are not progressing in the development of their critical thinking skills. Concept mapping is a technique for facilitating validation of one's critical thinking by graphically depicting the structure of complex concepts. Each of our three studies of concept mapping involved approximately 240 students enrolled in four sections…

"List composition effects" refer to the findings in which a given memory phenomenon shows discrepant patterns across different list designs (i.e., mixed or pure lists). These effects have typically been reported with verbal materials (e.g., word lists, paired associates, sentences); much less research has examined whether these effects…

A major debate in the mental-rotation literature concerns the question of whether objects are represented holistically during rotation. Effects of object complexity on rotational speed are considered strong evidence against such holistic representations. In Experiment 1, such an effect of object complexity was markedly present. A closer look on…

The present research examines the nature of the different processes that have been proposed to underlie semantic priming. Specifically, it has been argued that priming arises as a result of "automatic target activation" and/or the use of strategies like prospective "expectancy generation" and "retrospective semantic…

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether there would be a difference in academic growth measured by gain scores when parents and students received a cumulative standards-based progress report. Participants included 116 fifth grade math students in a Dallas-Fort Worth Area school. Data from district assessments were used to produce…

University class structure is changing. To accommodate working students, programmes are increasing their offerings of long night classes--some lasting as long as six hours. While these long classes may be more convenient for students, they have unintended consequences as a result of cognitive load. Using a panel of 124 students (372 observations)…

Previous research has indicated the disconnect between example-based research focusing on worked examples (WEs) and that focusing on modeling examples. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the effect of four different types of examples from the two separate lines of research, including standard WEs, erroneous WEs, expert (masterly)…

The aim of this research is to determine whether students' test performance and approaches to test questions change based on the type of mathematics questions (visual or verbal) administered to them. This research is based on a mixed-design model. The quantitative data are gathered from 297 seventh grade students, attending seven different middle…

Introduction: This study aims to understand the interactions of perception, effort, emotion, time and performance during the performance of multiple information tasks using Web information technologies. Method: Twenty volunteers from a university participated in this study. Questionnaires were used to obtain general background information and…

Introduction: This study characterizes self-reported functional vision goals and the use of low vision resources (for example, services and devices) in ophthalmology clinic patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and comorbid depressive symptoms. Methods: From July 2009 to February 2013, we assessed 188 consecutive patients (age 65+;…

This article focuses on the quantitative phase of a multiphase mixed methods study investigating adults' and families' access to government food assistance. The research evaluates participants' comprehension of, and ability to, adequately complete authentic complex texts--national food assistance application documents. Summative usability testing…

This large-scale study examined the development of time-based prospective memory (PM) across childhood and the roles that working memory updating and time monitoring play in driving age effects in PM performance. One hundred and ninety-seven children aged 5 to 14 years completed a time-based PM task where working memory updating load was…

This study sought to learn about stress experienced by students enrolled in the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados. This research was primarily undertaken to help UWI administrators/academic staff understand and address student stress. One hundred and six FSS students responded to:- (1) student…