This article explores the legacy of Paul Pintrich in regard to theory and research in conceptual change. Specifically, this article reviews his vision for a view of conceptual change--a vision that integrated motivation and affect within a broader view of cognition in the classroom (Pintrich, 1999; Pintrich & Sinatra, 2003). This article describes…

The authors present 2 experiments that establish the presence of knowledge partitioning in perceptual categorization. Many participants learned to rely on a context cue, which did not predict category membership but identified partial boundaries, to gate independent partial categorization strategies. When participants partitioned their knowledge,…

Most research on differential item functioning (DIF) focuses on methods for detection rather than on understanding why DIF might occur. This study was designed to investigate whether two alternative approaches to parsing items based on structural characteristics related to particular cognitive strategies could be used to help explain gender DIF.…

In this article, I present a study in which 12 pairs of 8th-grade students solved problems about a physical device with algebra. The device, called a winch, instantiates motions that can be modeled by pairs of simultaneous linear functions. The following question motivated the study: How can students generate algebraic models without direct…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is introducing the concept of a "semantic learning organization" (SLO) as an extension of the concept of "learning organization" in the technological domain. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes existing definitions and conceptualizations of both learning organizations and Semantic Web technology to develop…

Past research has demonstrated that nonlinear Web presentations (i.e., those that allow viewing in multiple orders) may lead to decreased free recall and learning of factual information compared to traditional, print-like linear Web designs. Recent evidence suggests, however, that nonlinear designs may facilitate learning of the interconnectedness…

College grades play important educational and social roles (Milton, Pollio, and Eison, 1986; Walvoord and Anderson, 1998). What is not well understood are the types of problems that exist in college grading practices. Conversations about grade inflation in higher education are often based on sparse anecdotal evidence and charged with value…

This issue has presented seven previous chapters on international program evaluation standards. Chapter One defined terms and identified major themes. Subsequent chapters examined evaluation standards created in North America, Europe, and Africa; those contemplated in Australasia; and the evaluation standards created by the European Commission and…

Early child development sequences were studied in the beginning of the 20th century and in the process uncovered some relevant conclusions about early post-natal life. This might have been the very beginning of some principles of what has become known as Developmental Psychology or how humans grow. The writer has tried to codify the essentials of…

An instructional application consists of a set of resources and activities to implement interacting, interrelated, and structured experiences oriented towards achieving specific educational objectives. The development of computer-based instructional applications has to follow a well defined process, so models for computer-based instructional…

To know the age effects in foreign language learning for children in China, we made both qualitative survey on the English teachers, the students and their parents by means of questionnaire; and quantitative survey on the students' scores from junior 1 to senior 2 (5 years) in the secondary school by analyses between those (over 30 students) who…

This study examines the development of nanoscience/nanotechnology over a 35 year period (1970-2004) by mapping its social and cognitive structures using social network analysis, bibliometrics and document analysis, and following their changes in time. Mapping is performed based on 580,000 journal articles, 240,000 patents and 53,000 research…

This article examines the World Bank's recent World Development Report on youth and development (2007) as an empirical example to explore the links between the employment of "group identity" and the use of policy frameworks. Drawing on feminist theory to analyse the representations of young people put forward within the report, this article…

Effective teaching should focus on representational change, which is fundamental to learning and education, rather than conceptual change, which involves transformation of theories in science rather than the gradual building of knowledge that occurs in students. This article addresses the question about how to develop more efficient strategies for…

This study represents an effort to construct a learning framework for knowledge building and collective wisdom advancement in a virtual learning community (VLC) from the perspectives of system wholeness, intelligence wholeness and dynamics, learning models, and knowledge management. It also tries to construct the zone of proximal development (ZPD)…