The ability to flexibly allocate attention to goal-relevant information is pivotal for the completion of high-level cognitive processes. For instance, in comprehending illustrated texts, the reader permanently has to switch the attentional focus between the text and the corresponding picture in order to extract relevant information from both…

Research exploring urban youths' value orientations toward the human-nature relationship was conducted with 59 students from a school in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA) and 51 students from a school in Guangzhou, Guangdong (China). Quantitative findings suggest that the majority of participants in both groups shared a similar value orientation,…

In this action research, first-graders were challenged to cope with a sequence of modelling tasks involving an analysis of given situations and choices of mathematical tools. In the course of the sequence, they underwent a change in the nature of their problem-solving processes and developed modelling competencies. Moreover, during the task…

Some writers (Black and Wiliam in "Phi Delta Kappan" 80(2):139-148, 1998; Clark 2012; Panadero and Jonsson in "Educational Research Review" 9:129-144, 2013) have hypothesized a link between formative assessments (FA) and self-regulated learning (SRL). FA give students an opportunity to play an active role in their learning…

A major task of social work doctoral programs is preparing the next generation of researchers and educators in the profession. To develop competence in generating new knowledge relevant to social work practice and disseminating it to future practitioners, doctoral candidates need to master a broad and complicated set of theoretical, empirical, and…

Under the constraint of classroom time, English as foreign language (EFL) learners usually do not have adequate opportunity to practice oral English in class nor receive individualized feedback from the instructor. After-class practice constitutes an essential component of foreign language learning. This study investigated the effect of utilizing…

This article reports on an empirical study which attempted to explore the influence of repeating two different types of narrative tasks on complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in the oral production of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). For this purpose, the effects of four conditions (i.e. no task repetition with a loosely…

Despite the extensive research conducted regarding Focus on Form instruction, no conclusive results have been provided concerning (a) the issue of which techniques contribute most effectively to L2 acquisition, and b) at which level of proficiency those techniques should be implemented for best results. Dictogloss, one of these techniques, has…

Manual dexterity is known to gradually progress with developmental age. In this study, we evaluate the performance of unimanual and bimanual actions under perturbed and unperturbed conditions in children between 4 and 10 years of age. Behavior was assessed by means of trajectory measurements and degree of bimanual coupling. The results showed that…

This study investigated the relations between television exposure during the preschool years and the development of executive function (EF). Data were gathered from 107 parents of preschoolers who provided information on children's television viewing, background television exposure, exposure to specific televised content, and the age at which…

The current study hypothesized that integrating partly observational learning into virtual reality training systems (VRTS) can enhance training efficiency for procedural tasks. A common approach in designing VRTS is the enactive approach, which stresses the importance of physical actions within the environment to enhance perception and improve…

Although politeness markers are frequently used in written and spoken communication, pragmatic studies have not sufficiently explored the instruction of such markers to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners who lack sufficient opportunity to communicate with native speakers to acquire them in the context of use. Ignoring politeness as a…

Although we use statistical notions daily in making decisions, research in statistics education has focused mostly on formal statistics. Further, everyday culture may influence informal ideas of statistics. Yet, there appears to be minimal literature that deals with the educational implications of the role of culture. This paper will discuss the…

This study compares focus on form in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and mainstream English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts in the production of a specific morphological feature, the English 3rd person singular present tense marker "-s." Research conducted in CLIL contexts to date examining morphosyntactic features…

One perspective model for the creation of the learning environment and engendering students' thinking development is the Project-Based Collaborative Learning (PBCL) model. This model organizes learning by collaborative performance of various projects. In this paper we describe an approach to enhancing the PBCL model through the creation of…