Harris and Koenig make a compelling case for the importance of adult "testimony" and its influence on children's developing conceptions of topics in science and religion. This commentary considers how their analysis relates to constructivist and sociocultural theories and discusses several ways in which Harris and Koenig's arguments help to debunk…

We conducted a study to determine if the cleanliness of an apartment would affect observer impressions of the resident. Participants (210 female and 126 male undergraduate students) read a story in which a character's apartment was described as clean or dirty or in which no information about housekeeping was provided. For each condition, half the…

The field of early intervention has long been involved in a heated debate between proponents of behavioral teaching strategies and professionals against it. This debate has become more focused and clearly more relevant to the quality of services afforded to young children with special needs because more of these youngsters are being served in…

The authors investigated the influence of effect size and comment inclusion on readers' perceptions of research results. In three experiments, undergraduates, graduates, and faculty read a journal article that either included or did not include an effect size and commentary about the effect size. Contrary to a previous study by Robinson, Fouladi,…

In a recently released report, "Poetry in America", the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), at the University of Chicago, presented the results of a study evaluating American attitudes toward poetry. Commissioned by the Poetry Foundation, one of the largest literary organizations in the world, the research finds that the vast…

Andrew Wright has recently criticized an article penned by the author, which suggests that no good reasons have been given why religious education should be a compulsory school subject. In this article, the author explains the two misunderstandings Wright has about his position. First, Wright characterized the author's thesis as arguing "from…

The H. Bosch, F. Steinkamp, and E. Boller (see record 2006-08436-001) meta-analysis reaches mixed and cautious conclusions about the possibility of psychokinesis. The authors argue that, for both methodological and philosophical reasons, it is nearly impossible to draw any conclusions from this body of research. The authors do not agree that any…

Gignac [Gignac, G. E. (2006). "Evaluating subtest "g" saturation levels via the single trait-correlated uniqueness (STCU) SEM approach: Evidence in favor of crystallized subtests as the best indicators of "g"." "Intelligence," 34, 29-46.] used a single-trait correlated uniqueness (STCU) CFA approach to…

Recently, "Developmental Psychology" published 2 articles on the shape bias; both rejected the authors' previous proposals about the role of attentional learning in the development of a shape bias in object name learning. A. Cimpian and E. Markman (2005; see record EJ733667) did so by arguing that the shape bias does not exist but is an…

In an effort to both challenge and engage adolescent students deemed to be academically "at risk," the purpose of this study was to examine the possibility of creating a pedagogical bridge between dominant (school sanctioned) and non-dominant (non-school) forms of literacy. The study was conducted within a setting where high school students were…

At the turn of the century, Gertrude Buck developed a progressive language theory in which writer, reader, and language all participate in the making of meaning. Over the course of her career as a professor, Buck developed a theory of reader empowerment in composition and literature that prefigured some of the main tenets of reader-response theory…

A study used Elizabeth Flynn's interpretive strategies to look at high school students' reading responses. Subjects, 30 high school students, 15 males and 15 females (15 freshmen and 15 seniors) were assigned 3 short stories to read and were then asked to write responses to the stories. Results indicated that: (1) males were much more likely to…

Suggesting that the common classroom practice of literature instruction is antitheoretical and counterproductive, this paper elaborates theories of reading processes, discusses children's responses to literature, and proposes suggestions for classroom use. The first section of the paper outlines what literature instruction is expected to…

The summary information in this report provides teachers, school administrators, students, and the general public in Alberta, Canada with an overview of results from the January 1997 administration of the English 33 Diploma Examination. The information in the report is most helpful when used in conjunction with the detailed school and jurisdiction…

A study extended the investigation of readers' imaginative processes (spontaneous imagery and emotional response) to a new genre of texts: newspaper articles. A sample of 25 articles was randomly selected from a well-defined population of naturally occurring texts (articles with one or more subheadings and three to five paragraphs before the first…