The effects of reinforcer magnitude and response requirement on pigeons' say choices in an experimental homologue of human say-do correspondence were assessed in two experiments. The procedure was similar to a conditional discrimination procedure except the pigeons chose both a sample stimulus (the say component) and a comparison stimulus that…

This article describes the findings from the assessment of a touch-screen, multi-media learning program on livestock health and production: "The Daktari." The program was tested on a sample of 62 livestock keepers in the Nairobi slums of Kariobangi and Kibera. The study examined prior knowledge regarding three livestock diseases (liver…

A recent theory of pigeons' equivalence-class formation (Urcuioli, 2008) predicts that reflexivity, an untrained ability to match a stimulus to itself, should be observed after training on two "mirror-image" symbolic successive matching tasks plus identity successive matching using some of the symbolic matching stimuli. One group of pigeons was…

Although newborns have surprised scientists with their learning skills, proficiency on concurrent schedules of reinforcement requires (in effect) the ability to integrate and compare behavior-consequence relations over time. Can very young animals obey the quantitative relation that applies to such repeated choices, the generalized matching law?…

Eight pigeons responded in a three-component concurrent-chains procedure, with either independent or dependent initial links. Relative probability and immediacy of reinforcement in the terminal links were both varied, and outcomes on individual trials (reinforcement or nonreinforcement) were either signaled or unsignaled. Terminal-link fixed-time…

Animal-human interactions have been found to have positive influences on children across the world. In particular, research supports the benefits of animal-assisted activities in addressing students' social and behavioral problems within the classroom environment. The general information about animal-assisted activities provided in this…

We quantitatively measured the smiles of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD-C) using a wearable interface device during animal-assisted activities (AAA) for 7 months, and compared the results with a control of the same age. The participant was a 10-year-old boy with ASD, and a normal healthy boy of the same age was the control. They…

There has been widespread comment on the use and impact of Web 2.0 technologies in education. Given the use of such technologies, particularly social networking sites such as Facebook amongst the student body, it would be remiss of educators to not consider their use as part of a pedagogical strategy. This paper provides a preliminary…

We examined language-switching effects in French-English bilinguals using a paradigm where pictures are always named in the same language (either French or English) within a block of trials, and on each trial, the picture is preceded by a printed word from the same language or from the other language. Participants had to either make a language…

In Singapore, the Special Education for Autism (SEA) calls for a more focused, systematically structured framework to cater to the needs of children with autism in schools. As autism is a syndrome with co-morbid subtypes and different degrees of severity, a universal design for both learning and living becomes necessary to meet all the various…

Evolution and inheritance appear in the new National Science Curriculum for England, which comes into effect from September 2014. In the curriculum documents, it is expected that pupils in year 6 (ages 10-11) should be taught to: (1) recognise that living things have changed over time; (2) recognise that living things produce offspring of the same…

A collaborative effort between a junior high school and a nearby university allowed 40 eighth-grade honors students to engage in a scientific investigation within a university laboratory. These students, with their science teachers and university researchers, gathered data on egg cannibalism in a beach-spawning fish and thereby contributed to an…

This article presents an analysis of the longitudinal consequences of out-of-school science learning with a conceptual framework that connects the intentions of youth to their participation in science. The focus is on one girl's science activities in her home and hobby pursuits from fourth to seventh grade to create an empirical account of how…

The study is focusing on the finding out the children's perceiving of animals from the view of look and fear. The additional aims were to find out the influence of gender and age on the perceiving of animals from the view of look and fear. The sample size was created by the 27 Czech kindergarten children from two kindergartens. The number of 5…

In the authors' science classrooms, students respond favorably and with more enthusiasm when they engage them with doing activities and building their own connections, as opposed to simply listening to or reading about the important concepts. Creative activities are important in science classrooms because creativity is not only an integral…