Not-with-standing the current topoi of the Knowledge Society, a particular "fact" of modernity is that power is exercised less through brute force and more through systems of reason that order and classify what is known and acted on. This article explored the system of reason that orders and classifies what is talked about, thought and…

This paper describes an investigation into student reasoning about potential energy in the context of introductory electrostatics. Similar incorrect reasoning patterns emerged both in written questions administered after relevant instruction and in one-on-one interviews. These reasoning patterns are also prevalent in responses to questions posed…

In an essay on the rationality of play, the author characterizes rationality by the three distinct demands it makes on the individual--demands for autonomy, solidarity, and integrity. He develops each of these as they apply to the sport of sailing, using the example of two deep-ocean expeditions to arrive at a concept of deep play he sees as one…

People often justify history's place in the curriculum by its relationship to citizenship, yet there is little research to help educators picture how people use historical knowledge for civic purposes. This expert-novice study used the think-aloud method to examine how eight political scientists and eight high school students employed…

Despite Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSI 2010) recommendations, too often students' introduction to proof consists of the study of formal axiomatic systems--for example, triangle congruence proofs--typically in an introductory geometry course with no connection back to previous work in earlier algebra courses. Van Hiele…

A logic model is a visual representation of the assumptions and theory of action that underlie the structure of an education program. A program can be a strategy for instruction in a classroom, a training session for a group of teachers, a grade-level curriculum, a building-level intervention, or a district-or statewide initiative. This guide, an…

The understanding of emotions based on counterfactual reasoning was studied in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders ("n" = 71) and in typically developing children ("n" = 71), aged 6-12 years. Children were presented with eight stories about two protagonists who experienced the same positive or negative…

"Belief state" refers to the set of possible world states satisfying the agent's (usually imperfect) knowledge. The use of belief state allows the agent to reason about the world with incomplete information, by considering each possible state in the belief state individually, in the same way as if it had perfect knowledge. However, the…

In two experiments, typically developing (TD) children, high-functioning children with autism (HFA) and children with a history of autism who have achieved optimal outcomes (OOs), matched on age (M = 13 years) and nonverbal IQ, were asked to extend properties of categories to new items (categorical induction). All groups demonstrated some…

Figural effect is a response bias that depends on the arrangement of the terms in syllogisms. The usual pattern in construction tasks is that participants tend to give A-C responses when the syllogisms are in figure 4(A-B/B-C), while the majority of their conclusions are in the opposite direction (C-A) for syllogisms in figure 1 (B-A/C-B). We…

While discussions of the moral dimensions of the caring relation and their implications for teaching and learning are well developed within the literature, there has not been much analysis of the place of inquiry within our understanding of caring and the education inspired by it. Previous discussions offer important insight into what…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the argumentative structure of students' arguments using argumentation schemes as an instrument for reconstructing the missing premises underlying their reasoning. Building on the recent literature in science education, in order for an explanation to be persuasive and achieve a conceptual change it needs…

In this article, we review, on three grounds, the nature of the life story. First, we evaluate the appropriateness of the proposal that the life story emerges in adolescence (the time of the traditional identity crisis). Second, we examine the relation between big stories (of which the life story is one) and small stories. Finally, we consider…

Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause-effect relationship between two motion events, appears to be a powerful mechanism in our daily experience. In spite of a growing interest in the earliest causal representations, the role of experience in the origin of this sensitivity is still a matter of dispute. Here, we…

The objective of this study was to describe the developmental progression of counterfactual reasoning from childhood to adulthood. In contrast to the traditional view, it was recently reported by Rafetseder and colleagues that even a majority of 6-year-old children do not engage in counterfactual reasoning when asked counterfactual questions…