"Pragmatics & Language Learning. Volume 13" examines the organization of second language and multilingual speakers' talk and pragmatic knowledge across a range of naturalistic and experimental activities. Based on data collected among ESL and EFL learners from a variety of backgrounds, the contributions explore the nexus of pragmatic…

This brief considers the problem of using value-added scores to compare teachers who work in different schools. The author focuses on whether such comparisons can be regarded as fair, or, in statistical language, "unbiased." An unbiased measure does not systematically favor teachers because of the backgrounds of the students they are…

In this study, the researcher explored collegiate faculty use and perception of learning- centered strategies to assess student performance on various learning tasks. Through this study, the researcher identified the assessment strategies that faculty participants most frequently used, as well as the strategies that they perceived to be most…

The notion of language as a complex adaptive system has been conceived within an agent-based framework, which highlights the significance of individual-level variation in the characteristics and contextual circumstances of the learner/speaker. Yet, in spite of this emphasis, currently we know relatively little about the interplay among language,…

Recent research indicates that preschoolers make sophisticated choices in accepting testimony as a source of knowledge. Nonetheless, many children accept fantastical beings as real based on misleading testimony. The present study probes factors associated with belief in a novel fantastical figure, the Candy Witch, that 3- to 7-year-olds heard…

This lecture discusses the concept of lifestyle, which emerged in the field of marketing in the 1970s, as a new, and increasingly pervasive, discourse of identity cutting through older "demographic" discourses. Distributed by mediated experts and role models, and realized through the semiotics of "composites of connotation", it redraws the…

According to the temporal resolution power (TRP) hypothesis, higher TRP as reflected by better performance on psychophysical timing tasks accounts for faster speed of information processing and increased efficiency of information processing leading to better performance on tests of psychometric intelligence. An alternative explanation of…

This study analyzes latent change scores using latent curve models (LCMs) for evaluation research with pre-post-post designs. The article extends a recent article by Willoughby, Vandergrift, Blair, and Granger (2007) on the use of LCMs for studies with pre-post-post designs, and demonstrates that intervention effects can be better tested using…

fMR-Adaptation, where a pair of identical stimuli elicits a smaller neural response than a pair of dissimilar stimuli has been extensively used to study object identification and classification as well as memory. Thus far this technique has found limited application in evaluating brain areas sensitive to meaning, language and control of language…

The importance of higher education has never been clearer. Educational attainment--the number of years a person spends in school--strongly predicts adult earnings, as well as health and civic engagement. Yet relative to other developed nations, educational attainment in the United States is lagging, with young Americans who heretofore led the…

We studied developmental trends in 5 important reasoning tasks that are critical components of the operational definition of rational thinking. The tasks measured denominator neglect, belief bias, base rate sensitivity, resistance to framing, and the tendency toward otherside thinking. In addition to age, we examined 2 other individual difference…

Competency education is attracting significant interest as a promising way to help meet our national priority of ensuring that all young people are ready for college and careers. In competency-based schools, students advance at different rates, based on their ability to demonstrate mastery of learning objectives. Teachers provide customized…

This paper attempts to explain learner centered methodology of teaching at the school level due to implementation of National curriculum frame work for school (2005), since NCF [National Curriculum Framework] 2005 emphasizes the process of constructing knowledge i.e. learning to learn, willing to unlearn, and relearn as a new paradigm of learning…

The minimal control principle (Taatgen, 2007) predicts that people strive for problem-solving strategies that require as few internal control states as possible. In an experiment with the Abstract Decision Making task (ADM task; Joslyn & Hunt, 1998) the reward structure was manipulated to make either a low-control strategy or a high-strategy…

The central goal of this study is to gain insight into students' study approach, their personal reasons and the relations between them regarding students who continue or withdraw from the educational system within one year. Results of our questionnaire study show that students who continue their educational careers show higher scores on a…