The main objective of this methodological article is to discuss the contribution of response times as a tool in education research. The use of response times in research is largely a legacy of the work carried out in cognitive psychology, which has made it possible to describe the cognitive processes involved in information processing. In…

The current study uncovers secondary school students' actual use of text-learning strategies during an individual learning task by means of a concurrent self-reported thinking aloud procedure. Think-aloud data of 51 participants with different learning strategy profiles, distinguished based on a retrospective self-report questionnaire (i.e., 15…

This paper examines the role of the microgenetic method in science education. The microgenetic method is a technique for exploring the progression of learning in detail through repeated, high-frequency observations of a learner's "performance" in some activity. Existing microgenetic studies in science education are analysed. This leads…

This paper provides a synthesis of research on the relationship between music and language, drawing on evidence from neuroscience, psychology, sociology and education. It sets out why it has become necessary to justify the role of music in the school curriculum and summarizes the different methodologies adopted by researchers in the field. It…

The papers in this Special Issue were initially prepared for an EARLI 2013 Symposium that was designed to examine methodologies in use by researchers from two sister communities, Learning and Instruction and Learning Sciences. The four papers reflect a common ground in advances in conceptions of learning since the early days of the "cognitive…

Understanding forgetting from working memory, the memory used in ongoing cognitive processing, is critical to understanding human cognition. In the past decade, a number of conflicting findings have been reported regarding the role of time in forgetting from working memory. This has led to a debate concerning whether longer retention intervals…

The main purpose of the current study is to explain the effect of an enrichment reading program on the cognitive processes and neural structures of children experiencing reading difficulties. The current study was carried out in line with a single-subject research method and the between-subjects multiple probe design belonging to this method. This…

Given the current methodological interest in eliciting direct data on the cognitive processes L2 learners employ as they interact with L2 data during the early stages of the learning process, this article takes a critical and comparative look at three concurrent data elicitation procedures currently employed in the SLA literature: Think aloud (TA)…

The current article outlines a behavior-analytic approach to the study of so-called implicit attitudes and cognition. The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), the conceptual basis of which was derived from relational frame theory, is offered as a methodology that may be used in the experimental analysis of implicit attitudes and…

Introduction: The aim of our research was to investigate the modality effect in more detail by measuring it in a direct way. Two studies were conducted using the same subject and material. Method: Computer-based learning material was presented on several screens, each containing a short text and a picture. Modality was varied by presenting written…

A postcompletion error (PCE) is a specific kind of cognitive slip that involves omitting a final task step after the main goal of the task is accomplished. It is notoriously difficult to provoke (and hence study) slips under experimental conditions. In this paper, the authors present an experimental task paradigm that has been shown to be…

Jensen has reported reaction-time (RT) studies indicating that various parameters correlate significantly with IQ. Two parameters of interest are slope of RT across set size and increasing correlations of RT with IQ as set size increases. After reviewing these studies, the author concludes that Jensen's claims are unwarranted. (Author/BW)

A long-standing issue in the study of how people acquire visual information centers around the scheduling and deployment of attentional resources: Is the process serial, or is it parallel? A substantial empirical effort has been dedicated to resolving this issue. However, the results remain largely inconclusive because the methodologies that have…

Spanish-English bilinguals were tested for the speed with which they could recognize a word in one language as a member of a previously presented set of words in either language. Reaction time increased with the size of the presented set of words. Investigates the "translation effect" and its influence on information processing. (Editor/RK)

Analysis of 22 mean response times (RTs) for children with specific language impairment (SLI) found that SLI children's RTs increased linearly as a function of RTs for age-matched non-SLI control children. Intergroup differences in processing speed between children with and without SLI reflect some general component of cognitive processing.…