Critical thinking is important for higher education yet challenging to teach. Despite much research and conceptual analysis, the practice of teaching remains both difficult and contested. Studies often draw on the experiences of teachers, or research by teachers on student experiences. Here, we argue that student voice in critical thinking…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine potential mediators of the relationship between developmental language disorder (DLD) status and executive function performance. Method: Participants included preschoolers, of whom 80 met the diagnostic criteria for DLD and 103 were categorized as having typical language abilities. Participants'…

In the search for mechanisms that contribute to dyslexia, the term "attention" has been invoked to explain performance in a variety of tasks, creating confusion since all tasks do, indeed, demand "attention." Many studies lack an experimental manipulation of attention that would be necessary to determine its influence on task…

Allocating students into separate classes within a school depending on their "ability" is common in many countries. This paper presents a theoretical discussion of the practice, considering why it persists despite a long history of research emphasizing consequential problems. Our discussion identifies and critiques four possible reasons…

There are two ways, broadly speaking, that one might conceive of meritocratic education. On a standard, 'narrow' conception, a meritocratic approach to education is one which distributes certain educational goods and opportunities according to merit. On a second, 'broader' conception, however, meritocratic education is an educational system suited…

Family functioning and child participation are critical factors in recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and academic and social outcomes. Using mixed methods, we investigated these factors in children who experienced early childhood TBIs and then entered formal U.S. schooling. Caregivers completed interviews and scales of family functioning…

This study explores the conceptions of giftedness among Iranian primary school teachers. Through semi-structured interviews with 31 teachers, the findings reveal a multifaceted understanding of giftedness, including cognitive-academic skills (e.g., rapid learning, creative problem-solving, early reading ability, strong memory, abstract thinking,…

Humans routinely use external thinking tools, like pencil and paper, maps, and calculators, to solve cognitive problems that would have once been solved internally. As many youth face unprecedented exposure to increasingly capable technological aids, there is a growing pressure to understand children's cognitive offloading capacities and…

Two implicit metaphors can be seen as having dominated the study of the gifted--the savings bank and the investment bank. In the savings-bank metaphor, people have differential levels of IQ or general intelligence, which is viewed as determining whether they are gifted. Their cognitive ability is their metaphorical "money in the bank."…

This study aimed to portray insightful problem solvers. Participants solved classic insight problems and rebuses and completed cognitive and creativity tasks. Grouping the participants based on their success in solving insight problems of different modalities revealed that 95% of the spatial problem solvers succeeded in solving verbal ones…

Background: Differences in competence gains between academic and non-academic track schools are often attributed to selection effects based on students' primary school performance and socioeconomic status (SES). However, how the competencies of comparable students (in terms of school performance and social background) at different tracks develop…

Recently, there has been an increased interest in the associations between theory of mind (ToM), the ability to infer others' mental states, and academic functioning in middle childhood including scientific reasoning. This study follows this trend and addresses two gaps in the literature. First, it examines whether individual differences in ToM…

Cognitive-achievement relations research suggests that cognitive abilities are instrumental for academic skill development. This study examined cognitive-achievement relations with the newly revised Woodcock-Johnson V (WJ V) standardization sample across the lifespan (ages 6-90+) for reading, writing, and mathematics using multi-group structural…

Background: Developmental research provides considerable evidence of a strong relationship between verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) and mathematics ability across age groups. However, little is known about how components of WM (i.e., short-term storage, processing speed, the central executive) might relate to mathematics sub-categories…

Drawing from critical disability studies and cultural studies, this article unpacks cultural understandings of digital abilities. We analyse policy documents on digital education as cultural texts which communicate cultural values. Methodologically, we understand policy ideas as deriving from the larger culture. Our analysis first explores how…