Constructing an intuitive theory from data confronts learners with a "chicken-and-egg" problem: The laws can only be expressed in terms of the theory's core concepts, but these concepts are only meaningful in terms of the role they play in the theory's laws; how can a learner discover appropriate concepts and laws simultaneously, knowing…

Previous studies have detailed the consequence of ignoring a level of clustering in multilevel models with straightly hierarchical structures and have proposed methods to adjust for the fixed effect standard errors (SEs). However, in behavioral and social science research, there are usually two or more crossed clustering levels, such as when…

Adults create and update predictions about what speakers will say next. This study asks whether prediction can drive language acquisition, by testing whether 3- to 4-year-old children (n = 45) adapt to recent information when learning novel words. The study used a syntactic context which can precede both nouns and verbs to manipulate children's…

Multilevel modeling has been utilized for combining single-case experimental design (SCED) data assuming simple level-1 error structures. The purpose of this study is to compare various multilevel analysis approaches for handling potential complexity in the level-1 error structure within SCED data, including approaches assuming simple and complex…

The purpose of this article is to show how the philosophical theory of inferentialism can be used to understand students' conceptual development in the field of mathematics. Based on the works of philosophers such as Robert Brandom, an epistemological theory in mathematics education is presented that offers the opportunity to trace students'…

The generation of predictive inferences may be difficult when a story leads to multiple possible consequences. The present study examined whether inferences are generated when the story implies two mutually exclusive consequences are nearly equally likely to occur. Experiment 1 used a word-naming task and showed that neither inference was…

Using simulation-based inference (SBI), such as randomization tests, as the primary vehicle for introducing students to the logic and scope of statistical inference has been advocated with the potential of improving student understanding of statistical inference and the statistical investigative process. Moving beyond the individual class…

The authors of the Common Core State Standards and publishers of literacy programs focus on an essential aspect of comprehension, the process of drawing inferences. An inference refers to any piece of information that an author does not include in text but expects readers to use to make meaning. Four common inference types are anaphoric,…

In the English as a second language (ESL) research context, teachers are committed to ensuring that students are aware of their writing skills and the kinds of errors they make in their writing. This explains why teacher feedback is frequently practised in the writing classrooms. Self-assessment is another supplementary strategy that provides…

Fluency, vocabulary building, making inferences, expanding background knowledge, and metacognitive thinking are reading skills taught in schools across the country. Which of these do ELA teachers consider to be most important? It is not known which of these five areas Western Pennsylvania teachers believe has the most impact on comprehension…

Previous research has uncovered that, despite the omnipresence of focus in utterances, children typically do not compute the exhaustivity inference associated with cleft(-like) syntactic focus constructions at adult-like levels before 7 years of age. Children's comparable limitations with lexically triggered scalar implicatures, inferences with an…

This study shed light on the effects of four modes of vocabulary instruction, i.e., extended audio glossing, lexical inferencing, lexical translation, and frequency manipulation of input on the learning of lexical collocations by Iranian intermediate EFL learners. In so doing, 80 L1 Persian EFL students were divided into four 20-participant…

This systematic review aims to synthesize the literature on the effects of cross-linguistic transfer on Spanish/English bilinguals' reading comprehension skills. The search yielded at least 90 studies in which participants were Spanish/English bilinguals aged birth to Grade 12. Researchers assessed participants' decoding and/or linguistic…

One influential way of thinking about teaching is to conceive of it as a clinical profession, similar in important ways to medicine. However, fundamental differences between doctors' and teachers' practice limit the usefulness of the medical model. How can we adapt our understandings of clinical practice in light of the unique aspects of teaching…

Interactive read alouds (IRAs) present an opportunity for early elementary educators to support their students' academic skills as well as social development. Conducting IRAs with narrative texts, in particular, showcases how academic and social skills work together to support children's reading comprehension alongside social development. When IRA…