Children's knowledge of the use of objects helped determine whether children's actions indicate their understanding of the functional use of objects independent of their ability to verbally describe the object or its function. Found that older children made fewer phenomenism errors but that the majority were still able to show the function of the…

The role of partner familiarity in the organization, duration, and content of social pretend play was studied in a triadic situation involving two friends and a third familiar child. Findings showed that play between friends was longer and richer than play with the third partner and that girls spent nearly twice as much time in fantasy as boys.…

Findings of four investigations involving five through seven year olds suggest that, even though children can make relatively accurate judgments of their knowledge states, they tend to overestimate their competence when assessing their knowledge in relation to performance on a task. (RH)

Two experiments examined the effects of a culture-general factor, pattern redundancy, on the discrimination of five-tone melodies that differed in their adherence to Western tonal conventions, among 9-month olds, 5-year olds, and adults. Increasing exposure seemed to attenuate the effects of the pattern redundancy while amplifying the influence of…

Reactions to peers' distress were recorded for 52 toddlers (hosts), 18 to 36 months old, who were observed playing with familiar peers in their own homes during 2 sessions, 6 months apart. Four contextual factors were explored: the host's responsibility for the guest's distress, similarity between the toddler and the distressed peer, relative…

We assessed the impact of visual similarity on written word identification by having participants learn new words (e.g. BANARA) that were neighbours of familiar words that previously had no neighbours (e.g. BANANA). Repeated exposure to these new words made it more difficult to semantically categorize the familiar words. There was some evidence of…

A method for teaching problem-solving skills to mathematics students is presented. By subtly incorporating engineering applications, the students are simultaneously exposed to an effective outreach programme. The process includes offering a complex problem that challenges students' abilities. Before allowing the students to become frustrated, the…

Systems biology, metabolomics, metabolic engineering, and other recent developments in biochemistry suggest that future biochemists will require a detailed familiarity with the compounds and pathways of intermediary metabolism and their biochemical control. The challenge to the biochemistry instructor is the presentation of metabolic pathways in a…

Environmental familiarization is a learning phenomenon embedded within most tasks used to study learning and motivation. Given its prevalence there is surprisingly little systematic behavioral research on factors affecting familiarization. The six experiments reported in the present report used rats' tendency to interact more with a novel object…

Two studies were designed to investigate the role of morphemic structure on students' word reading. The first study asked whether familiar morphemes in words facilitate word reading for elementary students. Results showed that lower and upper elementary students read words with two morphemes (derived words with a base word and one suffix, such as…

This paper reports an investigation of children's picture storybooks about school. Previous research has indicated that parents and educators choose to read books about school to children as a way of helping children become familiar with school expectations. Drawing on over 100 children's picture storybooks, the content (text and illustrations) of…

The field of engineering is defined by a number of specialty areas, thus most engineering students must decide upon an educational specialty track within the engineering major. Data on familiarity with, and perceptions of similarity among 11 engineering specialties were collected from 129 undergraduate engineering students from a public urban…

This paper uses narrative and reflective methodologies to examine pedagogical practices that enable the production of meaningful relationships. I suggest that the term "fields of influence" encapsulates practices that enable some people to influence relationships with others. The narrative invites readers to consider how the embodied qualities…

Two alternative hypotheses can be used to explain how young children acquire the cardinal meaning of small-number words. The first stresses the role of counting and predicts better performance when the items are presented in succession. The second considers the role of subitizing and predicts better performance when the items are presented…

The study reported in this paper explored the schemas that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators bring to the task of comprehending oral narratives produced by Aboriginal children. During each data collection session, a participant listened to a series of eight passages and tried to recall each passage immediately after listening. The…