Tasks can vary in terms of difficulty and implementation conditions, and these in turn may affect the nature of the language produced by the learner. There have been a large number of studies which have investigated the effects of these task properties and implementation conditions on the language the learner produces. To date, results have been…

Three studies were conducted to examine the effects of a behavioral metacognitive technique on lessening students' illusions of learning. It was proposed that students' study time strategies, and consequently, final performance on a test, in a classroom setting, could be influenced positively by having students engage in metacognitive…

Mainstream linguistics has long held that there is a fundamental difference between adult and child language learning (Bley-Vroman, 1990; Johnson & Newport, 1989; DeKeyser, 2000; Paradis, 2004). This difference is often framed as a change from implicit language learning in childhood to explicit language learning in adulthood, which is…

Decodable books based on previous classroom instruction are the most frequently used texts for 1st grade reading instruction in public schools, yet no empirical studies exist demonstrating their efficacy or their benefits for beginning readers. This study attempts to address this gap in the research literature by analyzing the reading behaviors of…

We report a longitudinal study investigating the predictors of reading comprehension and word reading accuracy between the ages of 7 to 8 (UK Year 3) and 10 to 11 years (Year 6). We found that different skills predicted the development of each. Reading comprehension skill measured in Year 3 was a strong predictor of comprehension in Year 6;…

This article discusses the use of a reading curriculum designed to incorporate all of the proven practice components of reading as suggested in the United States National Reading Panel report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). These practices are phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.…

This non-experimental qualitative study examined archival survey data collected to evaluate the efficacy of a research assignment utilizing Wikipedia. Respondents were 14 doctoral students enrolled in Educational Leadership coursework during Fall 2011. There is limited research available on this topic, as Wikipedia has been minimally utilized as a…

This simulation study evaluated the potential of alternative loglinear smoothing strategies for improving equipercentile equating function accuracy. These alternative strategies use cues from the sample data to make automatable and efficient improvements to model fit, either through the use of indicator functions for fitting large residuals or by…

Grouped jackknifing may be used to evaluate the stability of equating procedures with respect to sampling error and with respect to changes in anchor selection. Properties of grouped jackknifing are reviewed for simple-random and stratified sampling, and its use is described for comparisons of anchor sets. Application is made to examples of item…

This paper investigates the influence of three factors on pronunciation accuracy of Chinese adult foreign language learners. Ten target sounds including phonemes and syllables are included in the pre-test, an analysis of which shows that the mispronunciation of the randomly chosen target sounds mainly results from L1 negative transfer. It is…

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) rely on knowledge of tongue placement to assess and provide intervention. A total of 175 SLPs who worked with children with speech sound disorders (SSDs) drew coronal diagrams of tongue/palate contact for 24 English consonants. Comparisons were made between their responses and typical English-speaking adults'…

It is imperative that teachers need to assess their learners' reading proficiency. Incidentally, most assessments developed and conducted by teachers merely discriminate who among their learners are performing better than the other. These assessments deplorably provide nothing more than norm reference data. Nonetheless, this is the only…

This research investigated how the accuracy of person ability and item difficulty parameter estimation varied across five IRT models with respect to the presence of guessing, targeting, and varied combinations of sample sizes and test lengths. The data were simulated with 50 replications under each of the 18 combined conditions. Five IRT models…

This study compared qualitative research results obtained by manual constant comparative analysis with results obtained by computer software analysis of the same data. An investigated about issues of trustworthiness and accuracy ensued. Results indicated that the inductive constant comparative data analysis generated 51 codes and two coding levels…

Heuristics embodying limited information search and noncompensatory processing of information can yield robust performance relative to computationally more complex models. One criticism raised against heuristics is the argument that complexity is hidden in the calculation of the cue order used to make predictions. We discuss ways to order cues…