When people make decisions, they act in a way that is either automatic ("rote"), or more thoughtful ("reflective"). But do people notice when "others" are behaving in a rote way, and do they care? We examine the detection of rote behavior and its consequences in U.S. adults, focusing specifically on pedagogy and…

It is well documented in the cognitive literature that visual stimuli create strong memory connections (Shapiro & Waters, 2005). In L2 research, mnemonic devices have been found to be a relevant factor in the development of vocabulary learning (Sagarra & Alba, 2006). However, the extent to which visual cues are needed in the association of…

Descriptions of the geography education of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Sweden are typically offered to contrast with current ideas in geography education, and the content of geography textbooks is the focus of this comparison. The role of maps and visual pedagogy are ignored, and the educational ideas developed from regional…

This study utilizes theory from situated cognition to investigate faculty beliefs about student learning and their influence on teaching decisions. Results of interviews with and observations of 56 science and math faculty found that the two most common beliefs are: (a) students learn best through repeated practice, and (b) students have different…

Many college students struggle with first-semester general chemistry. Prior studies have shown that a student's prior knowledge of chemistry, a cognitive factor, does not account for the total variance when measured by examination scores. This study explored the role of self-regulated learning (SRL) to identify the degree of success or failure of…

According to Csikszentmihalyi (1988), creativity is a very complex interaction among a person, a field, and a culture. In keeping with this approach, a look at Asian culture in relation to its impact on creativity is in order. While people may vary in their native capacity for creativity, it is in the individual's interaction with the macrocosm…

The power of civic education to elicit positive student outcomes has been empirically documented. However, the field is only now beginning to understand the causal processes that bring about these positive changes in young people. "The Civic Mission of Schools" report commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE (2003) lays out…