Recent research investigating decisions from experience suggests that not all information is treated equally in the decision process, with more recently encountered information having a greater impact. We report 2 studies investigating how this differential treatment of sequentially encountered information affects subjective valuations of risky…

This study investigated contributions of general cognitive abilities and foundational mathematical competencies to numeration understanding (i.e., base-10 structure) versus multidigit calculation skill. Children (n = 394, M = 6.5 years) were assessed on general cognitive abilities and foundational numerical competencies at start of 1st grade; on…

The components of children's trust in same-gender peers (trust beliefs, ascribed trustworthiness, and dyadic reciprocal trust) were examined in samples of 8-11-year-olds from the UK, Italy, and Japan. Trust was assessed by children's ratings of the extent to which same-gender classmates kept promises and kept secrets. Social relations analyses…

Prospective memory (PM) refers to remembering to perform a previously planned action at the appropriate time or in the appropriate context. The present study investigated the effects of individual differences in age and trait anxiety on PM performance in 3-5- and 5-7-year-olds. Two types of PM measures were used: an event-based task, requiring…

Understanders appear to routinely and immediately evaluate the congruence of discourse at many levels of analysis, processes often labeled "validation." This study was an initial exploration of individual differences in discourse validation. Text "reading-time" profiles were examined as a function of two negligibly correlated…

The genetic effects on individual differences in reading development were examined using genome-wide complex trait analysis (GCTA) in a twin sample. In unrelated individuals (one twin per pair, n = 2,942), the GCTA-based heritability of reading fluency was ~20%-29% at ages 7 and 12. GCTA bivariate results showed that the phenotypic stability of…

Decision-making is a complex process that is largely studied from an experimental perspective or in specific organizational contexts. As such, no generalizable framework exists with which to study decision-making from an individual differences perspective for predictive/selection purposes. By generalising a context-specific decision model proposed…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that transfer ability (positive and negative) varies depending on the nature of the problems, using the knowledge transfer matrix, as well as being dependent on the individual differences of the learner. A total of 178 participants from the United States and New Zealand completed measures of prior…

This study investigated the views of teachers and learners regarding the timing of grammatical instruction, conceptualized as a distinction between isolated and integrated form-focused instruction (FFI) proposed by Spada and Lightbown (2008). Both types of FFI are described as taking place in primarily meaning-based communicative classrooms. They…

Most of the individual difference variance in the population is found "within" families, yet studying the processes causing this variation is difficult due to confounds between genetic and nongenetic influences. Quasi-experiments can be used to test hypotheses regarding environment exposure (e.g., timing, duration) while controlling for…

Metacognitive strategy knowledge, motivation, and learning strategies play an important role in self-regulated learning (SRL). However, little is known about different profiles of self-regulated learners in schools that prepare students for the university entrance certificate. The aim of this study was to examine intraindividual differences in the…

The Adult Basic Education (ABE) population consists of a wide range of abilities with needs that may be unique to this set of learners. The purpose of this study was to better understand the relative contributions of phonological decoding and morphological awareness to spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension across a sample of ABE students. In…

This study examined accuracy in production and grammaticality judgements of verb morphology by eighteen Chinese-speaking children learning English as a second language (L2) followed longitudinally from four to six years of exposure to English, and who began to learn English at age 4;2. Children's growth in accuracy with verb morphology reached a…

Student ratings of teaching quality have been shown to be powerful predictors of important academic outcome variables. This is the case despite the fact that students from the same classroom can perceive teaching quality quite differently in their own idiosyncratic ways. These differences among students in the same classroom are typically…

The present study was designed to examine the effects of short-term study abroad (SA) on learners' L2 anxiety, international posture, and L2 willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, the SA experience of 69 L2 learners in four different SA programmes was investigated. The data were obtained from participant questionnaires, which were…