This book traces and summarizes the author's theoretical insights and empirical findings in the field of foreign language education. The volume explores themes such as individual differences in L1 ability and their connection to L2 aptitude and L2 achievement, L2 anxiety as an affective or cognitive variable, and the relationship between L1 and L2…

Estimation of within-trial interactions in meta-analysis is crucial for reliable assessment of how treatment effects vary across participant subgroups. However, current methods have various limitations. Patients, clinicians and policy-makers need reliable estimates of treatment effects within specific covariate subgroups, on relative and absolute…

Experimental psychology is witnessing an increase in research on individual differences, which requires the development of new tasks that can reliably assess variations among participants. To do this, cognitive researchers need statistical methods that many researchers have not learned during their training. The lack of expertise can pose…

Starting with the question of why there is so much religiously motivated resistance against compulsory sex education, this article explores and discusses entanglements of norms about sexuality, gender, and religion in education. Based on predominantly Swedish data, the aim of the paper is to offer perspectives on connections between religiosity…

This book traces and summarizes theoretical insights and empirical findings on the topic of whether or not anxiety for language learning could be a causal variable for individual differences in language learning. The author brings together three decades of research to show that first language (L1) skills and second language (L2) aptitude are…

Why do I work? Despite instructors' best efforts, students struggle to understand how different people answer this question differently. This exercise enables students to explore what motivates them in comparison to their peers and previous generations while reinforcing the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Students…

Over the last decade, iterated learning studies have provided compelling evidence for the claim that linguistic structure can emerge from non-structured input, through the process of transmission. However, it is unclear whether individuals differ in their tendency to add structure, an issue with implications for understanding who are the agents of…

Special educators serve a diverse population of students with unique strengths and needs, and adaptive interventions that account for individual differences before and during the intervention are an important tool to moving the field toward more individualized practices. The purpose of this article is to detail the conceptualization and…

A list of 16 things the author believes about students with gifts and talents are described in this column. These beliefs stem from research that he and/or others have conducted or from his own personal experiences. In this column, he comments on each of these statements that he has come to believe are true.

Decades of research has shown that example-based learning is an effective instructional strategy for learning new skills. The field of learning from examples is seeing a shift in focus towards more innovative and use-inspired research, in part because the use of examples for informal and formal learning purposes has mushroomed. This special issue…

The aim of this article is twofold. First, it provides a general overview of reading compre­hension by outlining classic models of single-text comprehension and more recent models of multiple-text comprehension and sourcing during reading comprehension. Second, the article highlights important sources of individual differences in reading…

Over the past 50 years, a large body of work has demonstrated that during childhood and adolescence peers are strong socialization agents influencing youth development across a wide array of behavioral domains. In this report, we highlight how this long-standing research focus on peer influence may benefit from undertaking new directions that have…

This article explores the relation between curiosity and interest by examining how in-the-moment experiences of curiosity and of interest emerge out of exploratory behavior observed in infancy and early childhood. As experiential states, there is little to distinguish curiosity and interest. Descriptions of developing interests that refer to…

Online and distance learning is a practice situated in environments--places, spaces, and times, with particular people, in particular contexts, with particular technologies, within particular institutions. In other words, the practice of online and distance learning is not wholly individual: it is situated within broader environments. In this…

The incorporation of digital technologies into adult education classrooms has seen steady growth for over two decades. Many computer-based applications are used for skills development, practice, and other activities inside and outside the classroom. Despite such integration, the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected in-person learning, catching…