Factor analysis of a survey of 2,072 students in 176 courses in 4 departments of an Israeli community college revealed similarities in student satisfaction among departments with the teacher and interpersonal relationships between students the major contributing factors. Results suggested that an evaluation tool appropriate for many courses or…

This study, involving 20 normally developing 4-year olds, found no visual sequential recall differences between direct selection and scanning in task performance. However, subjects correctly recalled fewer sequential symbols represented by Blissymbols than by Picsyms, and recalled significantly fewer three-symbol sequences than two-symbol…

This study investigated return-to-task rates on hard and easy tasks that secondary students projected for scenario characters and for themselves. Data revealed significantly greater rates of return to easy tasks. Girls had significantly higher return-to-task rates. Evidence of self-presentation bias was present. (SM)

Focuses on determining which semantic classes were being easily learned and which were causing difficulty for pupils in Brunei Darussalam's bilingual-education system. Also sought to determine, through analysis of pupil translation errors, which factors made a particular word or class of words difficult to learn. (Author/VWL)

High demands on learners in Web-based learning environments and constraints of the human cognitive system cause disorientation and cognitive overload. These problems could be inhibited if appropriate cognitive tools are provided to support learners' cognitive processes. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing the use of…

This study aimed to investigate children's performance and perception of problem difficulty in solving everyday mathematical problems with familiar versus unfamiliar contexts. In addition, the ways that children identify the similarities in problem-solving approaches between problem settings and everyday shopping were also examined. Forty-eight…

This study documents the transformation of a graduate-level course for teachers that had traditionally been taught in a face-to-face (f2f) model, in multiple sections, at a large university. By designing the course for online delivery and developing various interactive multimedia modules, the university was able to offer the course at a…

New information and communications technologies and research in cognitive science have led to new ways to think about and implement learning environments. Among these new approaches to instruction and new methods to support learning and performance is an interest in and emphasis on complex subject matter (e.g., complex and dynamic systems…

This is the 30th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2008. Section 664(d) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as reauthorized in 2004, requires that the Department of Education report annually on the progress made toward the provision of a free appropriate…

The 4th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2011) brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large datasets to answer educational research questions. The conference, held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 6-9, 2011, follows the three previous editions…

Item response theory (IRT) has been used extensively to study differential item functioning (dif) and to identify potentially biased items. The use of IRT for diagnostic purposes is less prevalent and has received comparatively less attention. This study addressed differential objective function (dof) to identify potentially biased content units.…

Analogy items from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) were evaluated for differential performance by black and white examinees. Black and white examinees were first matched for overall SAT-V scores prior to conducting item analyses. A content and psycholinguistic analysis of 220 disclosed SAT analogy items from 11 test forms was performed.…

A discussion of language acquisition assumes that lexicon plays a central role, and that the principles of conventionality and contrast are also essential. It examines the hypotheses children draw on about possible word meanings and how they map their meanings into forms. This process begins with children's emerging knowledge of conventional words…

A survey investigated the attitudes of second language learners about authentic texts, written and oral, used for language instruction. Respondents were 186 randomly-selected university students of German. The students were administered a 212-item questionnaire (the items are appended) that requested information concerning student demographic…

A new testing strategy that provides protection against the problem of having examinees in adaptive testing choose difficulty levels that are not matched to their proficiency levels was introduced and evaluated. The method, termed restricted self-adapted testing (RSAT), still provides examinees with a degree of control over the difficulty levels…