Looks at the social-historical context of developmental and other social science research in the United States. Focuses on the impact of Freud's and Piaget's theories. Discusses the current research trend to turn to the ideas in humanities and literary studies that have remained concerned with human development in social-historical reality. (ET)

Examines multiple perspectives in historical fiction and biography. By exploring point of view, students are inspired to look outward and investigate characters' experiences and the diversity in their world. Teachers should not allow their own cultures to bias selection and interpretation of texts. They should encourage students to develop…

Discusses applications of theories and research in psychology to understand controversies generated by two recent articles, explaining the need to distinguish between rational and intuitive thinking, recognize the power of context, think reflectively, and realize the costs of defying the crowd, and noting steps one can take to be wiser and more…

Examines the role scholarship plays in today's practice of student affairs. States that the nature of scholarship changes and adapts to the context within which student affairs is practiced. Identifies a new purpose of scholarship and outlines different ways emergent scholarship can meet the needs of today's practitioner. (Contains 13 references.)…

Reevaluates Lev Vygotsky's theory of children's development. Argues that we can understand development as history only when we think simultaneously about how changing contexts affect what children appropriate from them, and how children's appropriations modify the contexts that guide development. (JPB)

Suggests that history is a distinctive discipline that is distinct as a form of inquiry and mode of understanding, exploring contemporary currents and discussing history's distinguishing characteristics (historical context and its discipline of historical imagination and historical understanding). The discussion highlights research and teaching,…

This set of studies explored the influence of temporal context across multiple-chain and multiple-successive-encounters procedures. Following training with different temporal contexts, the value of stimuli sharing similar reinforcement schedules was assessed by presenting these stimuli in concurrent probes. The results for the multiple-chain…

Observational methods were used to examine aggressive children's peer relations in 2 contexts: when being teased by a peer and when interacting with a best friend. Because aggressive children may have more difficulty than nonaggressive children in both peer contexts, the authors also examined whether relations between behaviors across contexts…

This article explores the question of what we might understand to be a learning context within discourses of lifelong learning. If we identify learning as both lifelong and lifewide, how then can we frame a meaningful notion of context and what is its relationship to learning? These are important questions that have been explored within work on…

Motivation is key to engaging students in meaningful and productive work. Identifying individual students' interests would be ideal, but in the real world, we need to create and sustain "situational interest." Smith and Wilhelm reference their own research as well as other research that is contextually very different to show how the same…

The effects of contextual shifts on the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE) were studied in autoshaping with rats. Experiment 1 established that the two contexts used subsequently were easily discriminable and equally salient. In Experiment 2, independent groups of rats received acquisition training under partial reinforcement (PRF) or…

People often choose intuitive rather than equally valid nonintuitive alternatives. The authors suggest that these intuitive biases arise because intuitions often spring to mind with subjective ease, and the subjective ease leads people to hold their intuitions with high confidence. An investigation of predictions against point spreads found that…

Inspired by the work of John Falk and Lynn Dierking, this article examines the characteristics of museum visitors and their museum experiences in order to provide recommendations for more meaningful learning experiences for future visitors. A recent shifting agenda in museum missions is discussed in respect to its visitors according to the…

This study examined how 4 middle school textbook series (2 skills-based, 2 Standards-based) present equal signs. Equal signs were often presented in standard operations equals answer contexts (e.g., 3 + 4 = 7) and were rarely presented in nonstandard operations on both sides contexts (e.g., 3 + 4 = 5 + 2). They were, however, presented in other…

The question of what it means to follow the "Standards" is discussed. It is argued that the "Standards" consists of statements of general principles, and that interpretation for specific applications requires professional judgment. As a result, disagreements among professionals on the applicability of particular standards to specific situations…