A study was undertaken to investigate the effects of directed response training to focus attention and to assess the impact of pictorial integrated stimuli on incidental learning. A total of 140 second- and fifth-grade children were administered a two-choice discrimination learning task consisting of three parts: original learning, overtraining,…

In two identical experiments, undergraduate students were randomly assigned to study course-appropriate prose learning materials under one of four experimental conditions (two levels of experience with objectives by two levels of possession of objectives). Achievement on objectives-relevant test items was significantly higher for possessors…

Students enrolled in six developmental reading classes offered during a 16-week semester or a 6-week summer session at El Camino College (California) were pre-tested with the California Phonics Survey (form 1) to determine their phonic abilities. Students enrolled in eight concurrent developmental writing classes were similarly tested. Those from…

A questionnaire designed to assess the degree to which general education courses at Pasadena City College (California) impart vocational skills was administered to 200 cooperative education students who had had courses in English, Social Science, Mathematics, and Life Science. Results showed that in none of the areas studied did students feel…

This book lists procedures, materials, special problems, and variations for playing 54 games designed to help children use their thinking abilities in play. The games presented were designed primarily for use in school with children aged 5-9. They give practice in such skills as planning, drawing inferences, seeing things from other points of…

Three studies investigated goal expectancy as a variable in teaching-learning situations. The first study looked at the effect of the student's expectancy of the type of test to be given on their ability to recall word lists. There was a strong type-of-test expectancy effect in that those persons expecting to recall words in any sequence actually…

The hidden curriculum of schools gives students an image of science in which scientific truths are seen as a collection of facts, scientists as clever people, scientific explanations as true because they "make sense," and reality as consisting of observation. (Author/DCS)

Compares English acquisition of German students in English immersion (IM), non-immersion, and non-IM groups from the same school as the IM groups. Examines whether English vocabulary learning occurs incidentally while students are learning history or geography taught in English and whether learning abilities activated in the IM classroom are the…

Co-workers of three job trainees with mental retardation used coincidental training procedures while completing their own jobs. Coincidental training resulted in improved accuracy of salad-making skills, but skill acquisition was very slow; subsequently, a model and a quality-control check were added, resulting in higher performance levels. (JDD)

Sixteen students with learning disabilities or at risk of failure in foreign language study participated in a peer tutoring program with Spanish vocabulary. The classwide reciprocal peer tutoring system was found to be a feasible component of foreign language instruction, as high levels of Spanish words were learned and maintained, and incidental…

A high school teacher describes student experiences of meeting resistance when attempting to learn more about community issues or problems. These negative encounters, although causing some anxiety and distress, taught beneficial lessons that enabled students to grow and learn. (LP)

Reports on a case study of meaningful science learning in two African-American female high school students. Finds that complex cultural factors that permit cognitive passivity, confidence-without-competence, and attention to behavior over learning contribute to cognitive disengagement and ultimately to the blocking of intentional, meaningful…

This article describes how a program to involve peers without disabilities in the delivery of incidental information to students with disabilities was implemented in elementary and secondary classrooms. Guidelines are presented for peer presentation of nontargeted information, along with examples ways in which students with disabilities have…

Recent findings [Turcotte, Gagnon, & Poirier, 2005. The effect of old age on the learning of supra-span sequences. "Psychology and Aging," 20, 251-260.] indicate that incidental learning of visuo-spatial supra-span sequences through immediate serial recall declines with old age (Hebb's paradigm). In this study, we examined whether…

This study examines the effectiveness of teachers' incidental focus on form on vocabulary learning. Seventeen 45-minute audio-recorded teacher-led conversation, 204 learners' diaries (17 sessions x 12 learners) reporting what the participants had learned after each conversational class, 204 post-test translations, and 204 delayed post-test…