This study explored the extent to which the ethnic identity of a writer and the background (gender and area of teaching) of a rater can influence mainstream teacher candidates' evaluation of English as a second language (ESL) writing, using a matched-guise method. A one-page essay was elicited from an ESL learner enrolled in an intensive English…

By using the Movement Assessment Battery (MABC), the present study investigated possible gender differences in several tasks of motor competence in children. The sample included 67 Norwegian sixth-grade children (Girls N?=?29; Boys?=?39). Boys' performance exceeds that of girls in ball skills and in one of the balance skills. No differences were…

This article describes how the author has developed tasks for students that address the missed "essence of the matter" of algebraic transformations. Specifically, he has found that having students practice "perceiving" algebraic structure--by naming the "glue" in the expressions, drawing expressions using…

Investigative interviewers seek to obtain complete and accurate accounts of events from witnesses. Two studies examined the influence of instructions about the use of don't know (DK) responses and of clarifying the meanings of DK responses on the quality of responding to questioning. Participants watched a video, and after a delay (Study 1, 30…

Research on bimanual coordination of hand movements has identified several loci of bimanual interference, including interference because of programming different movement parameters or selecting different targets for the two hands. This study investigates the extent and origin of interference when participants execute bimanual actions with tools.…

Prospective teachers (PTs), enrolled in a mathematics methods course, were asked to analyze children's mathematical thinking by viewing videotaped clinical interviews over the course of an entire semester. They were also asked to conduct two of their own interviews with children as the semester progressed. While the type of analysis varied, all of…

Learning to spell is very difficult for dyslexic children, a phenomenon explained by a deficit in processing phonological information. However, to spell correctly in an alphabetic language such as French, phonological knowledge is not enough. Indeed, the French written system requires the speller to acquire visuo-orthographical and morphological…

In most collections of segmental speech errors, exchanges are less frequent than anticipations and perseverations. However, it has been suggested that in inner speech exchanges might be more frequent than either anticipations or perseverations, because many half-way repaired errors (Yew...uhh...New York) are classified as repaired anticipations,…

The purpose of this research was to explore to what extent probing learners' errors on simplifying algebraic fractions would help them to reduce those errors. The study assumed that students' errors and misconceptions persist because they handle mathematical concepts as if they were isolated chunks of knowledge. A sample of 15 grade 10 girls took…

Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate the pragmatic abilities of individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Several studies in the literature have previously reported communicative deficits in individuals with TBI, however such research has focused principally on communicative deficits in general, without providing an…

This article takes a contrarian position: an "instructional design" or "teacher training" model, because of the sheer number of its interconnected parameters, is too complex to assess or to compare with other models. Models may not be the way to go just yet. This article recommends instead prior experimental research on limited…

The ability of language-impaired children to maintain coherence by using discourse connectives has so far been assessed by quantitative measures. This study is a first attempt to scrutinize the "quality" of connective use in specific language impairment (SLI). The authors investigate whether Russian-speaking children reveal sensitivity…

Two experiments investigated Chinese deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) adolescents' recognition of category names in an innovative task of semantic categorization. In each trial, the category-name target appeared briefly at the screen center followed by two words or two pictures for two basic-level exemplars of high or middle typicality, which…

This study develops a tool to identify errors in the presentation of natural laws based on the epistemology and ontology of the Scientific Realism of Mario Bunge. The tool is able to identify errors of different types: (1) epistemological, in which the law is incorrectly presented as data correlation instead of as a pattern of causality; (2)…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Morphosyntactic accuracy, the use of dummy auxiliaries, and complex syntax were assessed using a narrative task that was administered at three points…