One theoretical framework which addresses students' conceptions and reasoning processes in mathematics and science education is the intuitive rules theory. According to this theory, students' reasoning is affected by intuitive rules when they solve a wide variety of conceptually non-related mathematical and scientific tasks that share some common…

Learning can be viewed as a communication process that puts the learner in contact with concepts created by others. A result of communication is that an act of interpretation starts, which invokes a process of conceptualization. According to Mayes, successful conceptualization will need the support of learning activities. Hence, machine mediated…

In the present study, the authors investigated age differences in children's understanding (a) that a person's behavior may contribute to the formation of a shared opinion within the peer group and (b) that origins of a reputation can be direct or indirect. The authors read stories in which a target character engaged in either prosocial or…

With 101 healthy aging adult participants, the authors investigated whether executive functions are a unitary concept. The authors established the factor structure of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST; E. A. Berg, 1948), the Stroop color and word test (C. J. Golden, 1978), verbal fluency using the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT;…

This article describes several sessions of a larger case study that examined cognitive categories for library information in a group of children in kindergarten through grade 4. While the initial motivation for the project was pragmatic in nature, theoretical issues relating to people's cognitive categories for information are examined as well.…

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether verbal fluency tasks may specifically induce relatively greater left than right hemispheric activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The effectiveness of the manipulation was evaluated by EEG, which was recorded during performance of the verbal fluency task and during two control…

We tracked the evolvement of naming-related cortical dynamics with magnetoencephalography when five normal adults successfully learned names and/or meanings of unfamiliar objects. In all subjects, the learning of new names was associated with pronounced cortical effects. The learning effect was of long latency and emerged as a change of activation…

This study is aimed at the mechanisms used by students with an intellectual disability in the counting process. The assessment of the counting process is carried out through experimental tests inspired by the basic principles of Gelman and Gallistel, namely one-to-one, stable order, cardinality, abstraction and order irrelevance. This is a…

Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence was used to create augmented exams in Advanced Placement Psychology and Statistics. Participants included 1895 high school students from 19 states and 56 schools throughout the U.S. The psychometric results support the validity of creating examinations that assess memory, analytical, creative, and…

In the context of U.S. and world wide educational reforms that require teachers to understand and respond to student thinking about mathematics in new ways, ongoing learning from practice is a necessity. In this paper we report on this process for one teacher in one especially productive year of learning. This case study documents how Ms. Statz's…

We report a 4-year-old girl with a "de novo", apparently balanced complex chromosome rearrangement. She initially presented for assessment of velopharyngeal insufficiency due to hypernasal speech. She has distinctive facial features (long face, broad nasal bridge, and protuberant ears with simplified helices), bifid uvula, strabismus,…

This study examined theory of mind (ToM) and concepts of human biology (eyes, heart, brain, lungs and mind) in a sample of 67 children, including 25 high functioning children with autism (age 6-13), plus age-matched and preschool comparison groups. Contrary to Baron-Cohen [1989, "Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders," 19(4),…

In this study, we investigated the relationships between rapid naming of letters, digits and colours, and reading ability and executive function. We gave fifty-six grade three and four children rapid automatised naming tasks using letters and digits as stimuli, executive function measures including the Stroop task, a working memory task and the…

This study assessed the effectiveness of using a CALL lesson (Computer Assisted Language Learning) over a conventional lesson to facilitate learning of English prepositions at Bario, Malaysia. CALL was developed by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia as support material to enhance learning of English prepositions. Both the conventional and the…

How do we see young children's thinking in science? Is it, as much previous research has led us to believe, that their ideas can be neatly boxed like "brown paper packages tied up with strings"--as the song from "The Sound of Music" goes? Or are their ideas like "wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings" ("Sound of Music"): fluid, complex,…