There is a great deal of narrative in play and also of play in narrative, especially in the narrative and play of young children. Part of the reason for this may be that they share an important pattern or structure in the way they work as mental instruments, "mimesis." Mimesis is a mode of representation in which the relation between the symbol…

I show how a conversational process that takes simple, intuitively meaningful steps may be understood as a sophisticated computation that derives the richly detailed, complex representations implicit in our knowledge of language. To develop the account, I argue that natural language is structured in a way that lets us formalize grammatical…

This meta-analysis investigated the influence of assessment on the reported effects of problem-based learning (PBL) by applying Sugrue's (1995) model of cognitive components of problem solving. Three levels of the knowledge structure that can be targeted by assessment of problem solving are used as the main independent variables: (a) understanding…

Constructivist theory must choose between the hypothesis that felt perturbation drives cognitive development (the priority of felt perturbation) and the hypothesis that the particular process that eventually produces new cognitive structures first produces felt perturbation (the continuity of process). There is ambivalence in Piagetian theory…

Evolution by natural selection may be characterized as a system in which a large store of genetic information will persist indefinitely while it remains coordinated with its environment but will continuously produce small random variations that are tested for environmental effectiveness. In any environment, effective variations will persist while…

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's theory of metaphor (1980, 1999) provides a basis for describing everyday cognitive structures using linguistic models and thus, making it possible to uncover both individual and collective patterns of thought and action. Lakoff and Johnson have not, however, developed a workable system for carrying out qualitative…

Shapiro and Stefkovich in their 2001 book on ethics propose a framework for examining ethical dilemmas. At the heart of this conceptualization is "the best interests of the student." Yet a review of the literature reveals this term is interpreted broadly and few systematic attempts have been made to define it. In response to this lack of clarity,…

This paper attempts to provide a theoretical framework for the use of intercultural allusion in narratives of transcultural identity. Identity is taken to be narrative in performance, one element of which, intercultural allusion, serves pragmatically to broker the transcultured subject's insertion into the host culture. The paper then shows how…

CSWE mandates the study of social welfare policy, its history, and its evaluation; thus, assignments that require students to select policy for study are common. Educators provide frameworks for analysis but may not address the prerequisite step of locating policy for study, so students flounder in government documents without the tools to…

Our knowledge "system" is built up from disciplines and specialties as its components, which are "wired" by patterns of collaboration that constitute its organization. The intellectual autonomy of these components prevents this knowledge system from adequately accounting for what we have gradually discovered during the past 50 years: In human…

The purpose of this study is to examine readers' comprehension as they develop their mental representation of reference in four sequential online texts. A total of 92 college students from three reading classes were recruited to complete the following steps in each text: (1) identify references, (2) draw the relationships between references, and…

This article provides a tutorial overview of cognitive architectures that can form a theoretical foundation for designing multimedia instruction. Cognitive architectures include a description of memory stores, memory codes, and cognitive operations. Architectures that are relevant to multimedia learning include Paivio's dual coding theory,…

This article presents comments on the original article "Patterns of Mean-Level Change in Personality Traits Across the Life Course: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies," by B. W. Roberts, K. W. Walton, and W. Viechtbauer. Although Roberts et al depicted the present authors as proponents of the immutability of traits, in fact we have…

Like Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, and many others, the author "wants a social science that is committed up front to issues of social justice, equity, non-violence, peace, and universal human rights" (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Educational research, as she and the three authors whose papers make up this symposium of…

Dialogue is an encounter between two or more human beings. We will consider how some scientists, philosophers and religious scholars have looked at dialogue and attempt to learn from each tradition while seeing this encounter under the umbrella of "Systems theory", related to thermodynamics and flavored with Buddhist philosophy. The process of…