Background: Despite evidence that high levels of anxiety can impair Working Memory (WM) functioning, little is known about how anxiety is associated with classroom learning activities, which make high demands on verbal WM. Aims: To investigate the association between anxiety and learning on a task which makes high demands on verbal WM. Sample:…

This is the first collection of research studies to explore the potential for mixed methods to shed light on foreign or second language learning by young learners in instructed contexts. It brings together recent studies undertaken in Cameroon, China, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania and…

This study investigated the relationship between syntactic comprehension at the sentence level and text-level comprehension. The study isolated the specific contribution of syntax by asking whether sentence comprehension efficiency of difficult syntactic constructions explained variance in text comprehension after controlling for sentence…

We present an analysis of several characteristics of examples in 10 college algebra textbooks used in community colleges or 4-year institutions. We analyzed the examples along four dimensions: cognitive demand, the responses expected, the use of representations, and the strategies available for verifying the correctness of the solutions. We found…

Social facilitation as a self-presentational display, and social performance impairment attributable to perceived public failure, are examined in a study of context effects in verbal learning. Female undergraduates (N=72) served as subjects with one male who served as an "audience." Performance data indicate that, consistent with the present…

This study sought (1) to discover ways to teach kindergarten children to listen to a rule that defines a concept and then to apply it, and (2) to learn if rule-learning is facilitated when the pupil is required to verbalize the rule while using it. The task used in the study (1) involves deductive reasoning, (2) requires rule utilization rather…

Results indicated that negative instances were an integral part of concept acquisiton. The relationship between the positive and negative instances was based upon similarity of irrelevant attributes and sentence difficulty. (Author)

An experiment was performed to test predictions based on a combination of the frequency theory of verbal discrimination learning and Taylor-Spence drive theory, the latter of which postulates a Drive Level x Task Complexity interaction. (Editor)

In simultaneous learning two verbal lists are interlaced for study, with each tested separately. In the present experiments simultaneous learning was used as a means of determining the conditions under which study time or learning resources might be reallocated between lists. One of the lists was called the standard list and remained constant…

This investigation experimentally examines a networking learning strategy involving an information processing strategy that relates to the internal cognitive organization of to-be-learned information and its effects upon the learning of field-dependents. The learning behavior of field-independents is also compared to that of field-dependents with…

Subjects learned one, two, or three verbal lists simultaneously. Recall of the common list after 24 hours increased directly as the number of lists learned simultaneously increased. Assuming that simultaneous learning reduced interference, the interference was from extraexperimental sources of a proactive nature. (Author/CP)

Results indicated that discovery subjects took significantly longer than verbal reception subjects in the first-, third-, and sixth-grades to reach the original learning criterion. Verbal reception subjects generally demonstrated performance which was superior to discovery subjects on all measures of retention and transfer. (Author/BJG)