The objective of this research was to determine the robustness and statistical power of three different methods for testing the hypothesis that ordinal samples of five and seven Likert categories come from equal populations. The three methods are the two sample t-test with equal variances, the Mann-Whitney test, and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. In…

This cross-sectional study attempted to determine whether the English negation errors made by the University of Jordan's students were similar to the English negation errors proposed by Klima and Bellugi (1966), or influenced by the Arabic syntactic structures of negative sentences. Data of negative structures were gathered, and error counts were…

Comparing numerical performance between different languages does not only mean comparing different number-word systems, but also implies a comparison of differences regarding culture or educational systems. The Czech language provides the remarkable opportunity to disentangle this confound as there exist two different number-word systems within…

Previous work on children's acquisition of complex sequences points to a tendency for affricates to be acquired before clusters, but there is no clear evidence of a difference in order of acquisition between clusters with /s/ that violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), such as /s/ followed by stop in onset position, and other clusters…

Although labeling improves executive function (EF) performance in children older than 3 years, the results from studies with younger children have been equivocal. In the current study, we assessed performance in a computerized multistep multilocation search task with older 2-year-olds. The correct search location was either (a) not marked by a…

To compare the properties of inner and overt speech, Oppenheim and Dell (2008) counted participants' self-reported speech errors when reciting tongue twisters either overtly or silently and found a bias toward substituting phonemes that resulted in words in both conditions, but a bias toward substituting similar phonemes only when speech was…

Learning algebra is difficult for many students in part because of an emphasis on the memorization of abstract rules. Algebraic reasoners across expertise levels often rely on perceptual-motor strategies to make these rules meaningful and memorable. However, in many cases, rules are provided as patterns to be memorized verbally, with little overt…

This descriptive study determined which of the sources of errors would predict the errors committed by novice Java programmers. Descriptive statistics revealed that the respondents perceived that they committed the identified eighteen errors infrequently. Thought error was perceived to be the main source of error during the laboratory programming…

In a provocative and influential paper, Jesse Rothstein (2010) finds that standard value-added models (VAMs) suggest implausible future teacher effects on past student achievement, a finding that obviously cannot be viewed as causal. This is the basis of a falsification test (the Rothstein falsification test) that appears to indicate bias in VAM…

Neuroscience suggests that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is responsible for conflict monitoring and the detection of errors in cognitive tasks, thereby contributing to the implementation of attentional control. Though individual differences in frontally mediated goal maintenance have clearly been shown to influence outward behavior in…

Inhibitory control and incentive processes underlie decision making, yet few studies have explicitly examined their interaction across development. Here, the effects of potential rewards and losses on inhibitory control in 64 adolescents (13- to 17-year-olds) and 42 young adults (18- to 29-year-olds) were examined using an incentivized antisaccade…

Human motor behaviour is continually modified on the basis of errors between desired and actual movement outcomes. It is emerging that the role played by the primary motor cortex (M1) in this process is contingent upon a variety of factors, including the nature of the task being performed, and the stage of learning. Here we used repetitive TMS to…

Caffeine has become the most prevalently consumed psychostimulant in the world, but its influences on daily real-world functioning are relatively unknown. The present work investigated the effects of caffeine (0 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg) on a commonplace language task that required readers to identify and correct 4 error types in extended…

The conflict monitoring account posits that globally high levels of conflict trigger engagement of top-down control; however, recent findings point to the mercurial nature of top-down control in high conflict contexts. The current study examined the potential moderating effect of associative learning on conflict-triggered top-down control…

This paper explores the methodology and application of an assessment philosophy known as standards-based grading, via a critical comparison of standards-based grading to other assessment philosophies commonly employed at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels of education. Evidenced by examples of increased student engagement and…