In the Toulmin model, arguments begin with a "claim" supported by "data." The movement from claim to data is authorized by a general, unstated proposition Stephen E. Toulmin calls the "warrant." Unlike all other components of the Toulmin model, warrants usually remain implicit in an argument; they are the unspoken assumptions that bind together…

This article suggests that the public higher education "quality assurance" systems which have been erected over the last 20 years or so rest on flimsy public policy and intellectual foundations. It asks if input/output relationships in higher education can be identified to the extent implied by current models of public higher education "quality…

According to theoretical concepts like constructivism, each learner has to build up knowledge on his or her own. The learner creates hypotheses in order to explain "facts". Hypotheses do not guarantee certainty. They have to be verified. In this article, a theoretical framework will be presented which can help to understand and analyse the…

Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford's alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of…

Explanations of the marked individual differences in elementary school mathematical achievement and mathematical learning disability (MLD or dyscalculia) have involved domain-general factors (working memory, reasoning, processing speed, and oral language) and numerical factors that include single-digit processing efficiency and multidigit skills…

This study examined the longitudinal effects of a middle school reform mathematics curriculum on students' open-ended problem solving in high school. Using assessment data from a large, longitudinal project, we compared the open-ended problem-solving performance and strategy use of high school students who had used the Connected Mathematics…

The aim of our study was to assess the effect of the frequency of home exercise program (HEP) performance on pain [10-point visual analog scale (VAS)] in patients with osteoarthritis of the spine or knee after more than 6 months discharge from physical therapy (PT). We performed a retrospective chart review of 48 adult patients with a clinical…

Computational thinking aims to outline fundamental skills from computer science that everyone should learn. As currently defined, with help from the National Science Foundation (NSF), these skills include problem formulation, logically organizing data, automating solutions through algorithmic thinking, and representing data through abstraction.…

This article aims to account for students' assessments of the plausibility and applicability of analogical explanations, and individual differences in these assessments, by analyzing properties of students' underlying knowledge systems. We developed a model of explanation and change in explanation focusing on knowledge elements that provide a…

Data from 181 college students were used to assess whether math reasoning item response times in computerized testing can provide valid and reliable measures of a speed dimension. The alternate forms reliability of the speed dimension was .85. A two-dimensional structural equation model suggests that the speed dimension is related to the accuracy…

Students' experiences and perceptions of good teaching and understanding in literature and physics during one school year were investigated through in-depth interviews with students in eight Greek high school classes in the first, second and third grade. The pedagogical quality of in-depth teaching and understanding of subject matter, as described…

New representational technologies, such as virtual microscopy, create new affordances for medical education. In the article, a study on the following two issues is reported: (a) How does collaborative use of virtual microscopy shape students' engagement with and learning from virtual slides of tissue specimen? (b) How do visual and conceptual cues…

This paper is the first in a series of investigations into the data from the recent national study using the Light and Spectroscopy Concept Inventory (LSCI). In this paper, we use classical test theory to form a framework of results that will be used to evaluate individual item difficulties, item discriminations, and the overall reliability of the…

Fuzzy logic, which is based on fuzzy sets theory introduced by Zadeh in 1965, provides a rich and meaningful addition to standard logic. The applications which may be generated from or adapted to fuzzy logic are wide-ranging and provide the opportunity for modeling under conditions which are imprecisely defined. In this article we develop a fuzzy…

We live our lives in three-dimensional space and encounter geometrical problems (equipment instructions, maps, etc.) every day. Yet there are not sufficient opportunities for high school students to learn geometry. New teaching methods can help remedy this. Specifically our experience indicates that there is great promise for use of geometry…