In this response to Molly Ware's review of our 2013 book, "John Dewey and Education Outdoors," we extend her suggestion that complexity be regarded as an important, generative force in education reform. Drawing on Dewey's 1933 "Utopian Schools" speech, we discuss the "level deeper" that Dewey sought as he…

In problem-based learning students are responsible for their own learning process, which becomes evident when they must act independently, for example, when selecting literature resources for individual study. It is a matter of debate whether it is better to have students select their own literature resources or to present them with a list of…

Purpose: Educational methods to diagnose and improve the level of environmental conception are required. The present work reports a methodology based on studies about the environmental perception of a university public, divided into general students and those related to the forest sciences, who are involved with disciplines and researches related…

This study includes an evaluation, according to age, of the reading and global motion perception developmental trajectories of 2027 school age children in typical stages of development. Reading is assessed using the reading rate score test, for which all of the student participants, regardless of age, received the same passage of text of a medium…

Students find it difficult to join up the different things they study into a complex account of the past. Examination specifications do not necessarily help with this because of the way in which history is divided up into different "units", a problem exacerbated by textbooks being designed for particular exam topics. Stacey-Chapman…

This chapter introduces three applications of Bayesian inference to common and novel issues in second language research. After a review of the critiques of conventional hypothesis testing, our focus centers on ways Bayesian inference can be used for dealing with missing data, for testing theory-driven substantive hypotheses without a default null…

The study developed and applied an index for measuring the level of complexity of full authentic scientific inquiry. Complexity is a fundamental attribute of real life scientific research. The level of complexity is an overall reflection of complex cognitive and metacognitive processes which are required for navigating the authentic inquiry…

Although medical curricula now adopt an integrated teaching approach, this is not adequately reflected in assessment of anatomy knowledge and skills. In this study, we aimed to explore the impact of the addition of clinical vignette to item stems on students' performance in anatomy practical examinations. In this study, 129 undergraduate medical…

If good measurement depends in part on the estimation of accurate item characteristics, it is essential that test developers become aware of discrepancies that may exist on the item parameters before and after item review. The purpose of this study was to examine the answer changing patterns of students while taking paper-and-pencil multiple…

Previous experiments have shown a deleterious effect of visual representations on college students' ability to solve total- and joint-probability word problems. The present experiments used conditional-probability problems, known to be more difficult than total- and joint-probability problems. The diagram group was instructed in how to use tree…

The National Center of Education Statistics conducted a mapping study that equated the percentage proficient or above on each state's NCLB reading and mathematics tests in grades 4 and 8 to the NAEP scale. Each "NAEP equivalent score" was labeled according to NAEP's achievement levels and used to compare state proficiency standards and…

Computational tools and resources play an important role for vocabulary acquisition. Although a large variety of dictionaries and learning games are available, few resources provide information about the complexity of a word, either for learning or for comprehension. The idea here is to use frequency counts combined with intralexical variables to…

Animation can be used for various purposes such as for procedural and motor skill learning (i.e., dance, sports, and motor rehabilitation). In the context of visual design, this study explores the possible influence of realism (levels of visual detail) in animation at the cognitive stage of motor skill acquisition. Students (N = 64) with low-prior…

In this article we explore the use of pictorial glossaries as an accommodation for English learners (ELs) with entry and emerging levels of English language proficiency. Drawing on survey responses from 98 middle school ELs and cognitive interviews with 10 of the survey participants, we examined the participants' preferences and experiences with…

When learning English, learners might face a challenging task in mastering pronunciation due to differences in both languages such as sound-to-letter correspondence, size of phoneme inventory, allophonic realization of sounds, place and manner of articulation, among others. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review both theoretical and…