The aim of this study was, first, to investigate any pattern between students' quantitative contribution to argumentation and their science understanding, and second, to analyze any relationship between students' qualitative contribution to argumentation and their scientific knowledge. Participants of the study were four tenth-grade students. The…

One of the main objectives of many science educators is to enroll students into science majors and careers. Researchers have investigated students' views of science in terms of factors and influences that guide students to choose science as a career. However, few investigations exist that have studied the forms of language culture makes available…

Because human memory is largely reconstructive, people tend to reorganize and reevaluate an event in a way that is coherent to the truth values held in their belief system. This study investigated the role of topic congruence (defined as whether the reading content corresponds with readers' prior beliefs towards a contentious topic) in second…

Many forms of technological communication exist in non-linear environments and there is potential for new approaches to learning and teaching which may more closely approximate naturalistic and authentic approaches to learning. The following study examined the ways in which high school students were influenced by technology as they wrote and how…

This study examined the associations between students' self-reported verbal aggressiveness and argumentativeness and their perceptions of student BATs (Golish, 1999) as appropriate and effective as well as how likely they were to use each BAT. Participants were 187 undergraduate students enrolled in communication courses at a large Mid-Atlantic…

Past studies in language teaching have addressed the issue of whether the benefits of formal instruction outweigh those of naturalistic instruction, or vice versa. This study examined 1 aspect of naturalistic instruction closely: the conversation partnership. There were 3 conversation partnerships (English/Mandarin, English/Arabic, and…

This commentary dialogues with three articles that analyze the same database about science and religion discourse produced 17 years ago. Dialogues in these three articles and this commentary across space and time allow us to develop new and different understandings of the same database and situation. As part of this commentary, I discuss topics…

Building on previous studies of multiple text reading in history, this study aimed to contribute to that body of work by focusing on non-traditional multimodal sources. In an age of rapidly increasing access to and use of multimodal sources and a demand for reading and comprehending increasingly complex and specialized texts, it appeared there was…

Purpose: The aim of this article is to examine the empirical literature on irrationality and identify a set of concepts to help administrators cope with irrationality in decision making. Design/methodology/approach: This analysis is a synthesis of the selected research literature on irrationality. Findings: A set of seven concepts and propositions…

The purpose of this work is to provide higher education lobbyists with empirical evidence to support their arguments for better funding in today's tight budgetary times. This work explains two primary factors that contribute to the largely false impression of higher education's wastefulness which, unfortunately pervades both legislatures and the…

As many scholars have discussed, when addressing divisive social issues many people immediately assume an adversarial posture, thus lessening the chance for productive dialogues about these issues and lessening the likelihood that people will listen to each other. One area that is keenly affected by our "argument culture" is the classroom; after…

Just after the 1917 Revolution, the Soviet regime undertook to reorganize higher education in the spirit of the communist ideology. Among numerous measures, great importance was attached to changing the social composition of students in favor of those of blue-collar and peasant origin. Since the majority of college students in the early 1920s came…

The micro-time context of group processes (such as argumentation) can affect a group's micro-creativity (new ideas). Eighty high school students worked in groups of four on an algebra problem. Groups with higher mathematics grades showed greater micro-creativity, and both were linked to better problem solving outcomes. Dynamic multilevel analyses…

This paper explores the argumentation ability of ten science teachers in two South African schools on opposite ends of the resource spectrum. Toulmin's model is used to analyse individual contributions in six group discussions. The findings show that levels of argumentation improve with teachers' involvement in the development of teaching…

Little is known about social cognition regarding conflict in romantic relationships during late adolescence. The current study examined beliefs, social goals, and behavioral strategies for conflict in romantic relationships and their associations with relationship quality among a sample of 494 college students. Two dimensions of conflict beliefs,…