Distinguishes between critical and creative thinking and discusses critical-thinking in relation to modern instructional programs and information literacy. Outlines goals in critical-thinking curriculum, critical thinking skills (student disposition, interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, presenting argument, and reflection), and…

This study examines the relationship between ESL learners' depth of vocabulary knowledge, their lexical inferencing strategy use, and their success in deriving word meaning from context. Participants read a passage containing 10 unknown words and attempted to derive the meanings of the unknown words from context. Introspective think-aloud…

Science content area texts are difficult for most middle school students, particularly whose reading skills are below grade level. This article describes an innovative approach to integrating the teaching of middle school science content and reading skills to increase levels of student success with content area textbooks. For reading instruction,…

Previous research (e.g. "Cognition" 64 (1997) 73) suggests that the privileged level for inductive inference in a folk biological conceptual hierarchy does not correspond to the ''basic'' level (i.e. the level at which concepts are both informative and distinct). To further explore inductive inference within conceptual hierarchies, we examine…

Two psychometric models are presented for evaluating the difficulty of the distractors in multiple-choice items. They are based on the criterion of rising distractor selection ratios, which facilitates interpretation of the subject and item parameters. Statistical inferential tools are developed in a Bayesian framework: modal a posteriori…

This study investigated the knowledge base necessary for choosing appropriate statistical techniques in applied research. In this study, we compared knowledge used by six experts and six novices in two types of statistical tasks. The tasks were: 1) comparing research scenarios from the perspective of choosing a statistical technique, and 2) direct…

The purpose of this study is to explore elementary students' views of (NOS) to see how well they align with national reform recommendations (AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996). Using an open-ended questionnaire coupled with one-on-one interviews of fourth-grade students conducted at the end of the school year, the researchers explored students' understandings…

The present study investigates the development of children's ability to make inferences about a peer's mental state. In this study 48 eight-year-old children, 49 ten-year-old children and 44 adults observed and analyzed short video sequences, extracts from a socio-cognitive interaction between two children working on a mathematical task. The…

The inability to write scientific papers effectively remains a problem for many college students. To identify pedagogical constructs that help undergraduates write well in scientific formats, we evaluated the effect of the number and type of college composition courses previously taken, science writing experience, and tutorial services. In our…

For students to compete in the 21st-century global economy, knowledge of and proficiency in mathematics are critical. Whether headed to college or to the workforce, today's high school graduates need solid mathematics skill. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel was created in 2006 and charged with reviewing the best available scientific…

The authors propose a strategy for studying the effects of time-varying instructional treatments on repeatedly observed student achievement. This approach responds to three challenges: (a) The yearly reallocation of students to classrooms and teachers creates a complex structure of dependence among responses; (b) a child's learning outcome under a…

In this paper, a data perturbation method for minimizing the possibility of disclosure of participants' identities on a survey is described in the context of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The method distinguishes itself from most approaches because of the presence of cognitive tasks. Hence, a data edit should have minimal…

This article presents evidence from a national evaluation of the effects of 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school programs. The study was conducted in 12 school districts and 26 after-school centers, at which 2,308 elementary school students who were interested in attending a center were randomly assigned either to the treatment or…

Weighting and variance estimation are two statistical issues involved in survey data analysis for large-scale assessment programs such as the Higher Education Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy Assessment. Because survey data are always acquired by probability sampling, to draw unbiased or almost unbiased inferences for the…

The purpose of this E.D. TAB is to introduce new NCES survey data through the presentation of selected descriptive information. The E.D. TAB is purely descriptive in nature. Readers are cautioned not to draw causal inferences based solely on the bivariate results presented in this E.D. TAB. It is important to note that many of the variables…