The teaching and learning of statistics has impacted the curriculum in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Because of this growing movement to expand and include statistics into all levels of education, there is also a considerable interest in how to teach statistics. For statistics concepts that tend to be very difficult or…

The spatial knowledge of 18 children with spina bifida and 18 healthy control children (matched according to sex, age, and verbal IQ) was investigated in a computer-simulated environment. All children had to learn a route through a virtual floor system containing 18 landmarks. Controlling for cognitive abilities, the results revealed that children…

Many credentialing agencies today are either administering their examinations by computer or are likely to be doing so in the coming years. Unfortunately, although several promising computer-based test designs are available, little is known about how well they function in examination settings. The goal of this study was to compare fixed-length…

Canada's $76.5 billion annual investment in education is paying dividends. A recent international survey ranked Canadian students "second" in reading literacy, "fifth" in mathematics and "fifth" in science. For nations and individuals alike, such mastery is intrinsic to success in the new knowledge economy. Yet,…

As cognitive architectures move to account for increasingly complex real-world tasks, one of the most pressing challenges involves understanding and modeling human multitasking. Although a number of existing models now perform multitasking in real-world scenarios, these models typically employ customized executives that schedule tasks for the…

Do humans integrate experience on specific routes into metric survey knowledge of the environment, or do they depend on a simpler strategy of landmark navigation? The authors tested this question using a novel shortcut paradigm during walking in a virtual environment. The authors find that participants could not take successful shortcuts in a…

The potential for using virtual environments (VEs) in educational contexts for people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) has been recognized. However, very little is known about how people with ASDs interpret and understand VEs. This study aimed to investigate this directly with a group of 12 adolescents with ASDs, each individually matched…

According to a recent theory, anterior cingulate cortex is sensitive to response conflict, the coactivation of mutually incompatible responses. The present research develops this theory to provide a new account of the error-related negativity (ERN), a scalp potential observed following errors. Connectionist simulations of response conflict in an…

A simulated baseball batting task was used to compare the relative effects of attending to extraneous information (tone frequency) and attending to skill execution (direction of bat movement) on performance and swing kinematics and to evaluate how these effects differ as a function of expertise. The extraneous dual task degraded batting…

Berger and his colleagues argue that collective validation (i.e., group members' corroboration of deferential behavior) is an important source of legitimacy in informal task groups. This invites the question "What causes collective validation?" Drawing from Simmel and Blau in particular, I develop an explanation of collective validation that…

Some aspects of assistive technology can be enhanced by the application of virtual reality. Although virtual simulation offers a range of new possibilities, learning to navigate in a virtual environment is not equivalent to learning to navigate in the real world. Therefore, virtual reality simulation is advocated as a useful preparation for…

Immersive collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) are simulations in which geographically separated individuals interact in a shared, three-dimensional, digital space using immersive virtual environment technology. Unlike videoconference technology, which transmits direct video streams, immersive CVEs accurately track movements of interactants…

A simulation study of a sequential computerized mastery test is carried out with items modeled with the 3 parameter logistic item response theory model. The examinees' responses are either identically distributed, not identically distributed, or not identically distributed together with estimation errors in the item characteristics. The…

The roadside crossing judgments of children aged 7, 9, and 11 years were assessed relative to controls before and after training with a computer-simulated traffic environment. Trained children crossed more quickly, and their estimated crossing times became better aligned with actual crossing times. They crossed more promptly, missed fewer safe…

In many business courses, computer-based simulations are becoming a popular choice of pedagogical technique, yet research is only beginning to consider how these simulation games impact student outcomes. In this study, the author investigated individual perceptions of simulation team dynamics and their relationship to student affect regarding the…