The value of video analysis in physics education is well established, and both commercial and free educational video analysis programs are readily available. The video format is familiar to students, contains a wealth of spatial and temporal data, and provides a bridge between direct observations and abstract representations of physical phenomena.…

Mary Anne CLark describes the organization and uses of Genome Island, a virtual laboratory complex constructed in Second Life. Genome Island was created for teaching genetics to university undergraduates but also provides a public space where anyone interested in genetics can spend a few minutes, or a few hours, interacting with genetic…

This article focuses on the communication of compensatory self-presentations (CSP) (i.e., self-presentations that people engage in after publicly receiving unfavorable feedback), with prior work showing that people prudently constrain CSP to areas unrelated (vs. related) to the initial feedback. With the current project we examine the influence…

It is an extraordinary challenge to offer an undergraduate laboratory course in virology that teaches hands-on, relevant molecular biology techniques using nonpathogenic models of human virus detection. To our knowledge, there exists no inexpensive kits or reagent sets that are appropriate for demonstrating real-time PCR (RT-PCR) in an…

In the present visual-world experiment, participants were presented with visual displays that included a target item that was a semantic associate of an abstract or a concrete word. This manipulation allowed us to test a basic prediction derived from the qualitatively different representational framework that supports the view of different…

Two experiments investigated whether the spatial reference directions that are used to specify objects' locations in memory can be solely determined by layout geometry. Participants studied a layout of objects from a single viewpoint while their eye movements were recorded. Subsequently, participants used memory to make judgments of relative…

In this study, relations between learning activities of teachers and changes in their beliefs were examined. Thirty-four teachers in Dutch secondary education were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their beliefs about teaching and learning on two occasions. They were also asked to report on learning activities that they undertook.…

The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to investigate whether bilingualism confers an advantage on children's conversational understanding. A total of 163 children aged 3-6 years were given a Conversational Violations Test to determine their ability to identify responses to questions as violations of Gricean maxims of conversation…

The history of the discovery of iodine is retold using brown-colored seaweed found commonly along the ocean shore. The seaweed is ashed at a low temperature and the iodides are extracted into boiling water. The iodides are oxidized in acidic medium. Solvent extraction of iodine by oxidation of iodides as well as simple aqueous extraction of iodide…

This lab experiment illustrates the use of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) to perform proximate analysis on a series of coal samples of different rank. Peat and coke are also examined. A total of four exercises are described. These are dry exercises as students interpret previously recorded scans. The weight percent moisture, volatile matter,…

To pursue goal directed behavior, the cognitive system must be shielded against interference from irrelevant information. Aside from the online adjustment of cognitive control widely discussed in the literature, an additional mechanism of preventive goal shielding is suggested that circumvents irrelevant information from being processed in the…

This study examined children's tendency to confuse events that varied in source similarity, which was manipulated using different media of event presentation. In Experiment 1, children in two age groups (3- and 4-year-olds and 5- and 6-year-olds) experienced a live presentation of an event, and another event was either heard from a story (low…

Many students experience difficulty in acquiring basic writing skills and educators need to efficiently address those deficits by implementing an intervention with a high likelihood for success. The current article demonstrates the utility of using a brief experimental analysis (BEA) to identify a letter-formation intervention for a second-grade…

Synthesis of pure enantiomers is a key issue in industry, especially in areas connected to life sciences. Catalytic asymmetric synthesis has emerged as a powerful and practical tool. Here we describe an experiment on racemic reduction and asymmetric reduction via a catalytic hydrogen transfer process. Acetophenone and substituted acetophenones are…

Four experiments investigated infants' preferences for age-appropriate and age-inappropriate infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Two initial experiments showed that 6-, 10-, and 14-month-olds preferred IDS directed toward younger infants, and 4-, 8-, 10-, and 14-month-olds, but not 6-month-olds, preferred IDS directed…