This article describes an exciting exploration-based activity in which students develop an alternative definition of factor that can help them solve problems like the one presented above. Students work in groups to collect data, analyze the data to make conjectures, and then spend a significant amount of time debating and justifying their…

Metacognition is often described as knowledge and control over one's cognitive processes. Models of metacognition often include knowledge monitoring as the foundation of metacognitive skills. The current study was designed to determine whether the ability to accurately assess one's knowledge can increase throughout a semester long course, when…

The concept of focus on form has been influential in second language (L2) acquisition and pedagogy. One example of the implementation of focus on form is a post-task activity (e.g., anticipation of a public performance) that can selectively orient learners toward increased levels of accuracy. The present research proposes a new operationalization…

This 3-year, multi-informant study examined whether youths' perceptions of parental privacy invasion predicted lower parental knowledge over time, as a function of increased adolescent secrecy. Participants were 497 Dutch adolescents (Time 1 M = 13 years, SD = 0.5; 57% boys) and both parents. Higher youth-reported invasion predicted lower…

Socioeconomic status (SES) is an important environmental predictor of language and cognitive development, but the causal pathways by which it operates are unclear. We used a computational model of development to explore the adequacy of manipulations of environmental information to simulate SES effects in English past-tense acquisition, in a data…

Pieter Muysken's keynote paper, "Language contact outcomes as a result of bilingual optimization strategies", undertakes an ambitious project to theoretically unify different empirical outcomes of language contact, for instance, SLA, pidgins and Creoles, and code-switching. Muysken has dedicated a life-time to researching, rather…

Learning analytics is receiving increased attention, in part because it offers to assist educational institutions in increasing student retention, improving student success, and easing the burden of accountability. Although these large-scale issues are worthy of consideration, faculty might also be interested in how they can use learning analytics…

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is the finding of impaired memory performance for information stored in long-term memory due to retrieval of a related set of information. This phenomenon is often assigned to operations of a specialized mechanism recruited to resolve interference during retrieval by deactivating competing memory representations.…

Part-set cuing "inhibition" refers to the counterintuitive finding that hints--specifically, part of the set of to-be-remembered information--often impair memory performance in free recall tasks. Although inhibition is the most commonly reported result, part-set cuing "facilitation" has been shown with serial order tasks. The…

Background: Social withdrawal is a core neuropsychiatric phenomenon in developmental psychopathology. Its presence predicts psychopathology across many domains, including depression, psychosis, autism, anxiety, and suicide. Withdrawn behavior is highly heritable, persistent, and characteristically worsens without intervention. To date, few studies…

A meta-synthesis study was conducted of 60 research studies on educational data mining (EDM) and their impacts on and outcomes for improving learning outcomes. After an overview, an examination of these outcomes is provided (Romero, Ventura, Espejo, & Hervas, 2008; Romero, "et al.", 2011). Then, a review of other EDM-related research…

To understand the interactions between production patterns common to children regardless of language environment and the early appearance of production effects based on perceptual learning from the ambient language requires the study of languages with diverse phonological properties. Few studies have evaluated early phonological acquisition…

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. They enjoy a huge following of well-wishers and supporters who are optimistic that the standards will boost achievement in U.S. schools. Setting aside the cheerleading and fond hopes, what are the real chances of success? The most reasonable prediction is…

Reading-impaired children have difficulty tapping to a beat. Here we tested whether this relationship between reading ability and synchronized tapping holds in typically-developing adolescents. We also hypothesized that tapping relates to two other abilities. First, since auditory-motor synchronization requires monitoring of the relationship…

Despite the fact that key sociological theories of self and identity view the self as fundamentally rooted in networks of interpersonal relationships, empirical research investigating how personal network structure influences the self is conspicuously lacking. To address this gap, we examine links between network structure and role identity…