The study categorizes cultural background knowledge used by Latino students as they read history texts. The analysis revealed that participants made a large amount of connections attributed to their cultural experiential knowledge. The study also suggests reading ability does not limit the amount and quality of connections students make to their…

The expectations children bring to interactions, as well as the information they receive prior to them, may be important for children's experiences of new adults. In this study, 148 children (8-13 years old) reported on their expectations of adults, received one of three types of information about a new adult (positive, realistic, or control), and…

We investigate the efficiency of domain-specific heuristic strategies in mastering and predicting pericyclic six-electron rearrangements. Based on recent research findings on these types of reactions a new concept has been developed that should help students identify and describe six-electron rearrangements more readily in complex molecules. The…

Both adults and young children possess powerful statistical computation capabilities--they can infer the referent of a word from highly ambiguous contexts involving many words and many referents by aggregating cross-situational statistical information across contexts. This ability has been explained by models of hypothesis testing and by models of…

If we want to make something concrete in mathematics education, we are inclined introduce, what we call, "manipulatives", in the form of tactile objects or visual representations. If we want to make something concrete in a everyday-life conversation, we look for an example. In the former, we try to make a concrete model of our own,…

The academic anxiety of university students taking a course in statistics in a college of education was compared to the academic anxiety of students taking other courses. Results from the study indicated that students in statistics classes had higher levels of debilitative anxiety (p < 0.05) and lower levels of self-efficacy (p < 0.01) than…

This paper was originally developed to help the Training and Skills Commission in South Australia consider the pathways between elements of the vocational education and training (VET) system, how they are working and what improvements can be made. It has been revised to make it national in scope. The authors reveal that quite substantial numbers…

Previous research indicates that pairing pictures with associated words when teaching sight-word reading may hinder acquisition (e.g., Didden, Prinsen, & Sigafoos, 2000; Singh & Solman, 1990; Solman & Singh, 1992). The purpose of the current study was to determine whether this phenomenon was due to a previously learned association between the…

This paper refers to the development of a teaching innovation for the nature of science (NOS), for students aged 11-15, which specifically focuses on the interrelationship between science and technology. The development of the teaching and learning materials relied on inputs from three sources: the history and philosophy of science and technology,…

Prior knowledge shapes our experiences, but which prior knowledge shapes which experiences? This question is addressed in the domain of music perception. Three experiments were used to determine whether listeners activate specific musical memories during music listening. Each experiment provided listeners with one of two musical contexts that was…

Commonly used technical anatomy and physiology (A&P) terms are predominantly rooted in Latin and Greek vocabulary, so it is commonly inferred that a solid grounding in Latin and Greek roots of medical terminology will improve student learning in anatomy and related disciplines. This study examines the association of etymological knowledge of…

Performance anxiety is a common experience among musicians. Recent studies have found it to be an issue not only for adult performers but also for developing musicians as early as third grade. The question as to its developed or innate nature led to the present inquiry pertaining to young children's responses to performance situations. Sixty-six…

In recent years Finnish university language centres have increasingly developed procedures for assessing and recognising the skills in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) that students acquire in various non-formal and informal learning environments. This article describes the procedures developed by the University of Eastern Finland Language…

This study examines the lexical representation and recall of abstract words by beginning L2 learners of Spanish in the light of the predictions of the dual coding theory (Paivio 1971; Paivio and Desrochers 1980). Ninety-seven learners (forty-four males and fifty-three females) were randomly placed in the picture or non-picture group and taught…

The current National Initial Standards for Physical Education Teacher Education state that preservice teachers should achieve and maintain a level of health-related fitness consistent with that expected of K12 learners. However, little research has addressed the relevance of teacher fitness to effective physical education teaching. This study…