The role of words and gestures in guiding infants' inductive inferences about nonobvious properties was examined. One hundred seventy-two 14-month-olds and 22-month-olds were presented with novel target objects followed by test objects that varied in similarity to the target. Objects were introduced with a novel word or a novel gesture or with no…

Reports the results of a study that shows that the factors explaining experts' risk perception are similar to those of a comparable group of non-topical experts with a similar level of technological literacy and to the general public, and that the level of explained variance is quite comparable for experts and the general public. (Contains 32…

Examined correspondence between inferences made using two validation strategies (content- and criterion-related) in a specific personnel selection application. Data obtained on experienced form of the interview guide suggested a modest correspondence between inferences made with the two validation strategies. Analyses on inexperienced version did…

Considers objections to comparisonwise position, which holds that, when conducting simultaneous significance procedures, per-test Type I error rate should be controlled and that it is unnecessary to introduce adjustments designed to control familywise rate. Objections collected by Saville in an attempt to refute them are discussed along with…

There is a trend toward abandoning traditional parametric approaches to data analysis, with all their restrictive assumptions, in favor of computer-intensive nonparametric inferential statistical procedures, such as the jackknife and the bootstrap that are based on resampling of the sample data. These techniques are compared with the parametric…

We develop a theory of internal commitments or "personal rules" based on self-reputation over one's willpower, which transforms lapses into precedents that undermine future self-restraint. The foundation for this mechanism is the imperfect recall of past motives and feelings, leading people to draw inferences from their past actions. The degree of…

Only true experiments offer definitive evidence for causal inferences, but not all educational interventions are readily amenable to experiments. Correlational evidence can at least tentatively inform evidence-based practice when sophisticated causal modeling or exclusion methods are employed. Correlational evidence is most informative when…

The present study extends 8 years of previous research using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), a set of comprehension strategies designed to improve understanding of expository text. We examined teachers' year long implementation of CSR. Five intervention and five control teachers from five schools participated along with their students.…

The paper reports on a study among primary-school students of the process of deriving word meaning from written context in a first language. A sequential analysis of think-aloud protocols revealed that the students inferred one or more meanings, checked their inferences and then rejected or accepted them. These activities were performed in a…

Eighty-four 24- and 30-month-old children were tested with two analogy tasks: formal and problem solving. Experiment 1 included three Groups: relations specified, relations unspecified, and associative control (no exposure to base relations). In Experiment 2 the relation that linked that a- and b-terms in formal problems was explicitly shown in…

Gygax, Oakhill and Garnham (2003) showed that, contrary to the assumption of earlier research, readers do not infer specific emotions such as "guilt" or "boredom". This paper presents evidence for the non-specificity of emotional inferences regardless of the nature of the stories. In Experiment 1 and 2, Gygax et al.'s stories were made longer. In…

A total of 153 children (excluding those who erred on control questions), mainly 5 and 7 years of age, participated in two experiments that involved tests of false belief. In the task, the sought entity was first at Location 1 and then, unknown to the searching protagonist, it moved to Location 2. In Experiment 1, performance was well below…

Included here are two appendixes to "Adult Education Literacy Instruction: A Review of the Research." Appendix A, "Adult Studies," contains: (1) Assessment Profiles; (2) Alphabetics; (3) Fluency; (4) Vocabulary; and (5) Comprehension. Appendix B, "Adolescent Studies," contains: (1) Alphabetics; (2) Fluency; (3) Vocabulary; and (4) Comprehension.…

English Language Learners are an ever-growing population in public school systems today. Consequently, the policies and procedures that schools are required to adhere to are not limited to language minority students. In order for teachers to meet the needs of English Language Learning students, they need to address their student's whole…

Policy problems like "What should we do about global warming?" are ill-defined in large part because we do not agree on a system to represent them the way we agree Algebra problems should be represented by equations. As a first step toward building a policy deliberation tutor, we investigated: (a) whether causal diagrams help students learn to…