Two studies explored the conditions under which readers update their representation of news reports in the presence of alternative plausible explanations for a target event. To do so, this study asked readers to read news reports that mentioned 2 different causes to explain the occurrence of a single event. This study manipulated which of the 2…

Lissitz and Samuelsen (2007) have proposed an operational definition of "validity" that shifts many of the questions traditionally considered under validity to a separate category associated with the utility of test use. Operational definitions support inferences about how well people perform some kind of task or how they respond to some kind of…

In Barrouillet, Gauffroy, and Lecas's postscript to the current authors' original comment on Barrouillet, Gauffroy, and Lecas's original article, they made four clearly argued points. First, they argued that they had provided a clear rationale for truth value gaps. This misses the point of what a computational-level explanation means. Such an…

Professional practice can be conceptualised holistically, and in fact during the 1990s the "Australian model" of integrated or holistic competence emerged empirically. This piece outlines that story, and then develops a more rigorous conceptual analysis of what it is to make competent practical judgements, through inferences, in…

This paper focuses on developing students' informal inference skills, reporting on how a group of third grade students formulated and evaluated data-based inferences using the dynamic statistics data-visualization environment TinkerPlots[TM] (Konold & Miller, 2005), software specifically designed to meet the learning needs of students in the…

Theories of number concepts often suppose that the natural numbers are acquired as children learn to count and as they draw an induction based on their interpretation of the first few count words. In a bold critique of this general approach, Rips, Asmuth, Bloomfield [Rips, L., Asmuth, J. & Bloomfield, A. (2006). Giving the boot to the bootstrap:…

Variables influencing inferences about a stranger's goal during an unsolicited social interaction were explored. Experiment 1 developed a procedure for identifying cues. Experiments 2 and 3 assessed the relative importance of various cues (space, time, characteristics of oneself, characteristics of the stranger, and the stranger's behavior) for…

Approximately 20%-25% of the pediatric population will likely develop a sleep disorder sometime during childhood or adolescence. Studies have shown that untreated sleep disorders can negatively affect cognitive abilities, and academic and behavior performance. The Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students (SDIS) is a screening instrument designed to…

This study examines ways of approaching deductive reasoning of people involved in mathematics education and/or logic. The data source includes 21 individual semi-structured interviews. The data analysis reveals two different approaches. One approach refers to deductive reasoning as a systematic step-by-step manner for solving problems, both in…

Model evaluation in covariance structure analysis is critical before the results can be trusted. Due to finite sample sizes and unknown distributions of real data, existing conclusions regarding a particular statistic may not be applicable in practice. The bootstrap procedure automatically takes care of the unknown distribution and, for a given…

Leading accounts of judgment under uncertainty evaluate performance within purely statistical frameworks, holding people to the standards of classical Bayesian (A. Tversky & D. Kahneman, 1974) or frequentist (G. Gigerenzer & U. Hoffrage, 1995) norms. The authors argue that these frameworks have limited ability to explain the success and…

Four experiments examined the development of property induction on the basis of causal relations. In the first 2 studies, 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were presented with triads in which a target instance was equally similar to 2 inductive bases but shared a causal antecedent feature with 1 of them. All 3 age groups used causal relations…

Although an important role has been ascribed to working-memory capacity in reading comprehension, little consensus exists on its conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement except for its recognition as a limited-capacity processing and storage system. One specific problem in the measurement of working memory comes from researchers' use…

Informal inferential reasoning has shown some promise in developing students' deeper understanding of statistical processes. This paper presents a framework to think about three key principles of informal inference--generalizations "beyond the data," probabilistic language, and data as evidence. The authors use primary school classroom…

This article reports on a case study from a design-based research project that investigated how students make sense of the disciplinary tools they are taught to use, and specifically, what personal, interpersonal, and material resources support this process. The probability topic of binomial distribution was selected due to robust documentation of…