This study examines the evolutionary function of children's pretence. The everyday, cultural environment that children engage with is of a highly complex structure. Human adaptation, thus, becomes, by analogy, an equally complex process that requires the development of life skills. Whilst in role play children engage in "mimesis" and…

The exact roles of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in conditional choice behavior are unknown and a visual contextual response selection task was used for examining the issue. Inactivation of the mPFC severely disrupted performance in the task. mPFC inactivations, however, did not disrupt the capability of perceptual discrimination for visual…

Wilderness therapy (WT) provides an alternative treatment modality for a number of mental health issues. It holds particular appeal for at-risk youth, a population that is often less responsive to traditional psychotherapeutic interventions. Anecdotal accounts on the effectiveness of WT often show positive outcomes. Still, some researchers have…

Although observation largely takes into account the needs and abilities of individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, several difficulties are related to this assessment method as well. Our aim in this study was to investigate what possibilities the use of physiological measurements make available to validate alertness…

We report a within-teams experiment testing the effects of fit between team structure and regulatory task demands on task performance and satisfaction through average team member positive affect and helping behaviors. We used a completely crossed repeated-observations design in which 21 teams enacted 2 tasks with different regulatory focus…

This study describes a researcher-educator collaborative intervention that aimed to promote identity exploration among 9th-grade students in a literature lesson. The intervention focused on an introductory lesson about a poem from the curriculum, and involved designing educational activities anticipated to trigger identity exploration, promote a…

The purpose of this study was to enhance the teaching and learning of matter and its properties for grade 6 students. The development of a conceptual change approach instructional unit was undertaken for this purpose. Pre- and post-concept surveys, classroom observations, and student and teacher interviews were used to collect data. The teaching…

The study explored the nature of the interactive play behaviours of children with albinism and children without albinism and compared the interactive behaviours of both children with albinism and children without albinism. Naturalistic observations were conducted during periods of free play, using the interactive play behaviour checklist aided by…

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a qualitative research methodology option that requires further understanding and consideration. PAR is considered democratic, equitable, liberating, and life-enhancing qualitative inquiry that remains distinct from other qualitative methodologies (Kach & Kralik, 2006). Using PAR, qualitative features of an…

This study considers how communication patterns shape the university tutor role. A combination of ethnographic observations and interviews were used to determine the communication behaviors of university tutors and tutees, which help to define what is, otherwise, an ambiguous role. Specifically, the communicative behaviors engaged in by tutors are…

Motivated by computational analyses, we look at how teaching affects exploration and discovery. In Experiment 1, we investigated children's exploratory play after an adult pedagogically demonstrated a function of a toy, after an interrupted pedagogical demonstration, after a naive adult demonstrated the function, and at baseline. Preschoolers in…

The propensity score is the probability of treatment assignment conditional on observed baseline characteristics. The propensity score allows one to design and analyze an observational (nonrandomized) study so that it mimics some of the particular characteristics of a randomized controlled trial. In particular, the propensity score is a balancing…

It is difficult to say exactly when or how ideas originate and if and why they earn acceptance, but this author believes his theories evolved because of his background as an educator and a pragmatist who believes "validating" an idea through practical implementation is as important as the idea itself. For the author, there are considerable…

Unemployment has consequences for individuals, but its impacts also reverberate through families. This paper examines how families adapt to unemployment in one area of life--time in housework. Using 74,881 observations from 10,390 couples in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we estimate fixed effects models and find that individuals spend…

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) module 4 was investigated in an independent sample of high-functioning adult males with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to three specific diagnostic groups: schizophrenia, psychopathy, and typical development. ADOS module 4 proves to be a reliable instrument with good predictive value. It…