Dividing attention across multiple words occasionally results in misidentifications whereby letters apparently migrate between words. Previous studies have found that letter migrations preserve within-word letter position, which has been interpreted as support for position-specific letter coding. To investigate this issue, the authors used word…

The study investigated at what age children draw boundaries around pairs of objects that share either similarity or proximity. In two studies (N=132 and N=252) using a Wertheimer array, a clear age trend between 4 and 8 years showed that while young children were more likely to code objects into individual regions, older children were more likely…

This article discusses three different online services providing federated access to finding aids relating to archives found in a number of repositories: the Archives Hub, Access to Archives (A2A) and Navigational Aids for the History of Science, Technology and the Environment (NAHSTE). While the scale of the services is very different, a…

A general inductive approach for analysis of qualitative evaluation data is described. The purposes for using an inductive approach are to (a) condense raw textual data into a brief, summary format; (b) establish clear links between the evaluation or research objectives and the summary findings derived from the raw data; and (c) develop a…

This article presents comments on the article by D. Westen and J. Weinberger, which explored the benefits and limitations of clinical observation and judgment. Westen and Weinberger identify two categories of informants--clinicians and participants--but these categories could be expanded to include other observers who might have particular…

This study was designed to investigate the importance of spatial encoding in reading, with particular emphasis on visuo-spatial encoding mechanisms. Thirty one school children participated in the first study in which they were measured on their ability to solve a centrally presented spatial encoding task, as well as their sensitivity to the…

In our recent paper, "Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax" ("Journal of Child Language" 31, 61-99), we presented data from two-year-old children to examine the question of whether the semantic generality of verbs contributed to their ease and stage of acquisition over and above the effects of their typically high…

The objective of this article is to present the Pre-Conceptual Map methodology as a formalized way to identify, document, and utilize preconceived assumptions on the part of the researcher in qualitative inquiry. This technique can be used as a stand alone method or in conjunction with other qualitative techniques (i.e., naturalistic inquiry).…

The ability of preschool age children to perform generalized relational matching to sample tasks with and without an overt mediating stimulus was examined. This experiment was a direct replication of a study by Lowenkron (1984) and examined a behavioral model relevant to complex human behavior that he later came to call "joint control." Children…

Book reading has been demonstrated to promote vocabulary. The current study was conducted to examine the added value of an interactive shared book reading format that emphasizes active as opposed to noninteractive participation by the child. Studies that included a dialogic reading intervention group and a reading-as-usual control group, and that…

The traditional kappa statistic in assessing interrater agreement is not adequate when multiraters and multiattributes are involved. In this article, latent trait models are proposed to assess the multirater multiattribute (MRMA) agreement. Data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) are used to illustrate the…

"Code status" is a prominent feature of end-of-life discussions in U.S. hospitals. This essay analyzes how the rhetoric of code status articulates the terms of end-of-life decision-making in one hospital's "Patient" Preferences Worksheet. The Worksheet signifies the abandonment of the technological fix as the preferred…

The term "conceptual simulation" refers to a type of everyday reasoning strategy commonly called "what if" reasoning. It has been suggested in a number of contexts that this type of reasoning plays an important role in scientific discovery; however, little "direct" evidence exists to support this claim. This article proposes that conceptual…

The correlation between the communicative intent of parents, in terms of their expectation of a response and the response patterns of young children aged 23-25 months during parent-child interactions, was investigated. An Observational Framework was used to code these parameters in interactions between 36 children and their mothers. The children…

Competence-based approaches are frequently adopted as the key paradigm in both formal or non-formal education and training. To support the provision of competence-based learning services, it is necessary to be able to maintain a record of an individual's competences in a persistent and standard way. In this paper, we investigate potential issues…