This study examined the influence of argument-MA-structure complexity on the omission of auxiliary "be" verbs in 30 children with specific language impairment (SLI). Results indicated that the children with SLI and controls matched for mean length of utterance were more likely to omit the auxiliary forms when attempting sentences with greater…

In this article we propose the following definition for advanced mathematical thinking: Thinking that requires deductive and rigorous reasoning about mathematical notions that are not entirely accessible to us through our five senses. We argue that this definition is not necessarily tied to a particular kind of educational experience; nor is it…

Concept properties are an integral part of theories of conceptual representation and processing. To date, little is known about conceptual properties of abstract concepts, such as idea. This experiment systematically compared the content of 18 abstract and 18 concrete concepts, using a feature generation task. Thirty-one participants listed…

The four dominant theories of reasoning from conditionals are translated into formal models: The theory of mental models (Johnson-Laird, P. N., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2002). Conditionals: a theory of meaning, pragmatics, and inference. "Psychological Review," 109, 646-678), the suppositional theory (Evans, J. S. B. T., & Over, D. E. (2004). "If."…

Students find difficulty in learning linear algebra because of the abstraction and formalism associated with concepts such as vector space, linear independence, rank and invertible matrices. Learning the necessary procedures becomes insufficient, and imitating worked examples does not guarantee the maturity level necessary for understanding these…

A commonly accepted definition of online learning is that students have access to learning experiences in: time, place, pace, learning style, content, assessment, and pathways (Chen, 2003). Although this is true, there is a considerable concern about the level of abstraction involved in online education. Critics of flexible learning call it just…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an exploration of parents', teachers' and children's perspectives on children's understanding of wellbeing with the aim of illuminating and comparing the conceptualisation of wellbeing from these three perspectives. Design/methodology/approach: The participatory method developed to undertake the…

Mental-content verbs such as "think," "believe," "imagine" and "hope" seem to pose special problems for the young language learner. One possible explanation for these difficulties is that the concepts that these verbs express are hard to grasp and therefore their acquisition must await relevant conceptual development. According to a different,…

Previously, we proposed a model of student reasoning which combines the roles of representation, analogy, and layering of meaning--analogical scaffolding [Podolefsky and Finkelstein, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 3, 010109 (2007)]. The present empirical studies build on this model to examine its utility and demonstrate the vital intertwining of…

This study compared the relationships of self-efficacy and reasoning ability to achievement in introductory college biology. Based on the hypothesis that developing formal and postformal reasoning ability is a primary factor influencing self-efficacy, a significant positive correlation was predicted between reasoning ability and degree of…

Students often find that learning to program is hard. Introductory programming courses have high drop-out rates and students do not learn to program well. This paper presents experiences from three educational institutions where introductory programming courses were improved by adopting Python as the first programming language and roles of…

There is a crucial debate concerning the nature of chess chunks: One current possibility states that chunks are built by encoding particular combinations of pieces-on-squares (POSs), and that chunks are formed mostly by "close" pieces (in a "Euclidean" sense). A complementary hypothesis is that chunks are encoded by abstract,…

Kindergarten children were administered tests of inductive reasoning and field dependence and a series of perceptual egocentrism tasks. Results confirm a positive relation between field dependence and perceptual egocentrism; they also question the validity of the field-dependence construct in early childhood. (GO)

This study assessed the influence of age and ability on linear syllogistic reasoning in early adolescence by presenting bright and average 11- and 13-year-olds with 64, 3-term series problems. Results showed a dramatic effect on performance due to ability. Age effect was only marginally significant. (JMB)

Tested the comprehension of 3- and 4-year-old children with probable and improbable sentences in active and passive voice in order to evaluate the importance of semantic support for comprehension of passive sentences. (Author/SDH)