Fine-grained data on religious communities are often considered sensitive in South Asia and consequently remain inaccessible. Yet without such data, statistical research on communal relations and group-based inequality remains superficial, hampering the development of appropriate policy measures to prevent further social exclusion on the basis of…

What is the relationship between magnitude judgments relying on directly available characteristics versus probabilistic cues? Question frame was manipulated in a comparative judgment task previously assumed to involve inference across a probabilistic mental model (e.g., "Which city is largest"--the "larger" question--vs.…

This article is based on classroom application of a problem story constructed by Amos Tversky in the 1970s. His intention was to evaluate human beings' intuitions about statistical inference. The problem was revisited by his colleague, the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. The aim of this article is to show how popular science textbooks can…

Evidence is a cultural tool for engaging in a variety of knowledge production practices including observation, inference making, argumentation, persuasion, and explanation. Identifying and using evidence, as called for in many learning standards, is necessary but not sufficient for understanding the concepts and purposes of evidence. Before…

Does category representation change in the course of development? And if so, how and why? The current study attempted to answer these questions by examining category learning and category representation. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and adults were trained with either a classification task or an inference task and their…

One of the major debates concerning the nature of inferential reasoning is between counterexample-based theories such as mental model theory and probabilistic theories. This study looks at conclusion updating after the addition of statistical information to examine the hypothesis that deductive reasoning cannot be explained by probabilistic…

Explicit attention to research design issues is essential in experimental second language (L2) research. Too often, however, such careful attention is not paid. This article examines some of the issues surrounding experimental L2 research and its relationships to causal inferences. It discusses the place of research questions and hypotheses,…

This paper proposes the utilisation of a method for matching qualifications' graduate profile outcomes to job roles and work responsibilities as apprenticeship progresses. In so doing, attainment of qualifications is made possible through the workplace validation of graduate profiles. Conferred occupational identity by other workers or managers…

How does the visual system recognize images of a novel object after a single observation despite possible variations in the viewpoint of that object relative to the observer? One possibility is comparing the image with a prototype for invariance over a relevant transformation set (e.g., translations and dilations). However, invariance over…

The study builds on a newly modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to substantiate the motivation and operation of teachers' utilization of online learning resources. A "Comprehensiveness" construct is proposed in the modified TAM to reflect the breadth and depth of rich online knowledge. This new construct serves as the mediator…

This study investigates how middle school students make hypothetical purchasing, consuming, and voting decisions about environmental and science-related issues--a key component of environmental literacy. Fifty-three female students were given a packet containing multiple excerpts of information from conflicting positions from stakeholders and…

Teaching and theorizing in psychology has long been torn between targeting general underlying principles by observing dynamics in the individual or focusing on average behavior. As dealing with group averages is common practice in psychology, it is important for students to understand how individual learning curves relate to group average curves.…

Recent methods to improve generalizations from nonrandom samples typically invoke assumptions such as the strong ignorability of sample selection, which is challenging to meet in practice. Although researchers acknowledge the difficulty in meeting this assumption, point estimates are still provided and used without considering alternative…

In reaction to misuses and misinterpretations of p-values and confidence intervals, a social science journal editor banned p-values from its pages. This study aimed to show that education could address misuse and abuse. This study examines inference-related learning outcomes for social science students in an introductory course supplemented with…

The ability to predict future events in the environment and learn from them is a fundamental component of adaptive behavior across species. Here we propose that inferring predictions facilitates speech processing and word learning in the early stages of language development. Twelve- and 24-month olds' electrophysiological brain responses to heard…