An examination of research on expertise reveals potential gaps in current conceptualizations. Examinations of expertise often involve problems in ill-structured domains, which require abstract problem solving. Thus, conceptualizations of expertise are characterized by the use of relatively advanced, abstract problem-solving skills. Problems in…

In this article, the authors describe a unique approach to conducting and analyzing focus groups, described as peer discourse analysis. The primary objective of this analysis is to examine the shape and form of the discourses and negotiations that develop organically among peers in discussions of social issues. Peer discourse analysis has both…

At the beginning of the 21st century, a new social arrangement of work poses a series of questions and challenges to scholars who aim to help people develop their working lives. Given the globalization of career counseling, we decided to address these issues and then to formulate potentially innovative responses in an international forum. We used…

The study explored how Chinese children spontaneously explained the causes of illness. Two groups of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children from different socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds were recruited, with 30 children in each age group. A group of 30 college students were also recruited and their responses compared to those produced by the…

The author reports on and analyzes the inclusion of parody in her sequence of assignments for a graduate composition theory seminar. She contends that having students write parodies of particular theorists and theoretical camps enables them to gain critical leverage that they might not otherwise obtain on a field (in this case, composition…

Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) has been trialled and used by users from many countries around the globe, but despite the positive attitude towards its potential benefits to pedagogical processes its adoption in practice has been uneven, reflecting how difficult it is to make a new technology based concept an integral part of the…

To explore children's perceptions of their teachers' feelings in everyday classroom contexts, the authors conducted focus groups with New Zealand primary (elementary) school children to discuss what they observed about positive classroom teachers' interactional style and emotional behavior. Seventy-nine students between age 8 and 12 years, from…

In this chapter, "geospatial" refers to geographic space that includes location, distance, and the relative position of things on the earth's surface. Geospatial perspective calls for the addition of a geographic lens that focuses on place and space as important contextual variables. A geospatial view increases one's understanding of…

Research in science education suggests that teachers' beliefs are linked to the use of inquiry-based instruction; teachers holding a constructivist belief are more likely to engage in student-centered activities in the classroom. However, there is currently little research on the ways in which teachers' beliefs change over time, and in particular,…

This study investigated preservice teachers' beliefs and attitudes about teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students when progressing through specially designed courses. Data were collected using the Teacher Multicultural Attitude Survey and semi-structured interviews. Analyses indicated that preservice teachers who received more…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of node-link mapping on students' meaningful learning and conceptual change in a 1-semester introductory life-science course. This study used node-link mapping to integrate and apply the National Research Council's (NRC, 2005) three principles of human learning: engaging students' prior…

Distractor-driven multiple-choice assessment items and Rasch modeling were used as diagnostic tools to investigate students' understanding of middle school chemistry ideas. Ninety-one items were developed according to a procedure that ensured content alignment to the targeted standards and construct validity. The items were administered to 13360…

Our research aims to identify domain-specific similarities and differences of externalized cognitive structures. Cognitive structure, also known as knowledge structure or structural knowledge, is conceived as the manner in which an individual organizes the relationships of concepts in memory. By diagnosing these structures precisely, even…

Autobiographical reasoning is closely related to the development of normative ideas about life as measured by the cultural life script. The acquisition of a life script is an important prerequisite for autobiographical reasoning because children learn through the life script which events are expected to go into their life story, and when to expect…

Eye tracking was used to investigate how younger and older (60 or more years) adults use syntactic and semantic information to disambiguate noun/verb (NV) homographs (e.g., "park"). In event-related potential (ERP) work using the same materials, Lee and Federmeier (2009, 2011) found that young adults elicited a sustained frontal…