Individuals with autism spectrum disorders have impairments in language acquisition, but the underlying mechanism of these deficits is poorly understood. Implicit learning is potentially relevant to language development, particularly in speech segmentation, which relies on sensitivity to transitional probabilities between speech sounds. This study…

Distinguishing between good and bad science is not easy. Evaluating whether or not a claim really is supported by good research is like buying a car. There is an optimal solution to the problem, which is to read and digest all of the relevant research, but most people do not have time to execute the optimal solution. What they need is a good…

The study was about a non normative within-career transition in sport: Handball players' move from their current to an alternative team. Eighty male handball players were presented with scenarios that contained five pieces of information about current satisfaction with the present team, attractiveness of the alternative team (better springboard…

Recent evidence suggests that people are highly efficient at detecting conflicting outputs produced by competing intuitive and analytic reasoning processes. Specifically, De Neys and Glumicic (2008) demonstrated that participants reason longer about problems that are characterized by conflict (as opposed to agreement) between stereotypical…

We tested whether adult listeners can simultaneously keep track of variations in pitch and syllable duration in order to segment continuous speech into phrases and group these phrases into sentences. The speech stream was constructed so that prosodic cues signaled hierarchical structures (i.e., phrases embedded within sentences) and non-adjacent…

The need to encourage "what if" questions for statistical thinking in a classroom environment is stressed in this article. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

Research in cognitive psychology and science education has acknowledged two antagonistic theoretical perspectives concerning students' knowledge. One perspective considers students' knowledge as coherent or theory-like, explaining the learning process in terms of framework theories and stable mental models, whereas the other considers it…

The area of statistics is one in which teachers may be encouraged to make important links to other curriculum areas and social issues. Statistical literacy is a key component of being numerate and living as an informed citizen. The teaching of statistics provides an opportunity to inform and educate students about social issues and moral…

This paper investigates how individuals' performances of a cognitive task in a high-pressure competition are affected by their peers' performances. To do so, I use novel data from the National Spelling Bee, in which students attempt to spell words correctly in a tournament setting. Across OLS and instrumental variables approaches, I…

In addition to qualitative methods presented in chaos and complexity theories in educational research, this article addresses quantitative methods that may show potential for future research studies. Although much in the social and behavioral sciences literature has focused on computer simulations, this article explores current chaos and…

In this article we consider the consequences of work-family reconciliation, in terms of the extent to which the adjustment of the labour market career to family demands (by women) contributes to a better work-life balance. Using the Flemish SONAR-data, we analyse how changes in work and family conditions between the age of 26 and 29 are related to…

Using a probability-based neighborhood sample of urban African American youth and a sample of their close friends (N = 202), we conducted a one-year longitudinal study to examine key questions regarding sexual and drug using norms. The results provide validation of social norms governing sexual behavior, condom use, and substance use among…

The precise structure of speech sound representations is still a matter of debate. In the present neurobiological study, we compared predictions about differential sensitivity to speech contrasts between models that assume full specification of all phonological information in the mental lexicon with those assuming sparse representations (only…

This study investigates the extent to which national educational policy factors can explain differences in the probability of students repeating a grade in primary and lower-secondary education across OECD member countries. Data from the PISA 2009 study, the OECD "Education at a Glance" brochures, and the TALIS 2007 study were analyzed…

The main purpose of this research was to survey the literature about the U.S. education system and synthesize the important conclusions that could be identified as the main features of the education system in general as they relate to student achievement. The criteria were set and the meta-analysis procedures were carefully followed. This process…