West Virginia's attempt to reshape its teacher retirement system in the 1990s and early 2000s is often cited as a cautionary tale to block other teacher pension reform efforts across the country. Critics argue that because West Virginia replaced its pension fund with a defined contribution (DC), 401(k)-style plan in the early nineties, and then…

California is one of just two states (with Kansas) that does not use a student-level growth model to measure school performance. This brief lays out a number of common beliefs about growth models and provides evidence that these beliefs are inaccurate or unsupported. In so doing, the brief makes a positive case that the state should adopt such a…

Instructors are increasingly using interactive student response systems (SRS) to foster active learning and deepen student understanding in statistics education. Yet most studies focus on either the benefits of SRS or on how "students" can receive and use feedback, rather than on how "instructors" can use formative assessment…

Teachers' beliefs in certain neuromyths about neurodevelopmental disorders can negatively impact the educational inclusion of students who present them. This study aims to analyse the prevalence of neuromyths about the health and the emotional competences of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in pre-service teachers; and to assess the…

If everyone needs education to succeed, why is education always under fire politically? Why is the education system always on defense? To try to better understand the seemingly contradictory politics of education, the author began to examine primary data on the labor market, historic and current educational attainment rates, and scholarly…

With burgeoning attention to English for Academic Purposes (EAP), increasing emphasis has been placed on learners' Critical Thinking (CT), their experiences of demotivation, and how these factors interact within EAP writing framework. At the same time, learners' self-positioning in the EAP context has emerged as a process variable influencing…

Persistent difficulties in learning abstract algebraic concepts--particularly among preservice mathematics teachers--continue to hinder students' mathematical development. While prior studies have documented general misconceptions, few have grounded their analysis in comprehensive learning theories. Addressing this gap, the present study adopts…

This article discusses the theoretical and practical contributions of Zumbo, Gadermann, and Zeisser's family of ordinal reliability statistics. Implications, interpretation, recommendations, and practical applications regarding their ordinal measures, particularly ordinal alpha, are discussed. General misconceptions relating to this family of…

A small but growing body of research has been conducted on vocational outcomes for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); however, limited resources have been directed towards understanding outcomes for competitive employers. While ASD does present with a range of social communication and adaptive behavior deficits, adults on the spectrum may…

We tested the hypothesis that people show generality in their endorsement of unsubstantiated claims, employing more types of measures than used in previous studies. We found that measures of generic conspiracist ideation, specific fictitious conspiracy theory, and false conspiracy theory beliefs were all strongly and positively intercorrelated. A…

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) is most recalled in the history of biology for his Recapitulation Theory and the allegedly fudged illustrations of embryos that he presented in support of that case. Less well known is his contribution to abiogenesis theory, which he incorporated into evolutionary theory. In so doing, Haeckel, a vitriolic atheist, was…

Philosophy for Children (henceforth P4C) is a program and a pedagogy for teaching philosophy in k-12 school that was first developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp. The P4C approach is generally presented as a valuable form of education for democratic citizenship. This relationship is so obvious that it often remains underdeveloped: P4C…

The paper presents an experimental study that examines the conditions required for news about behavioral genetics to activate genetic essentialism beliefs. Nine hundred sixty-five adults living in the USA were randomly assigned to read either a control news article or one of the three versions of a news story about behavioral genetics. The…

Misinformation often has an ongoing effect on people's memory and inferential reasoning even after clear corrections are provided; this is known as the continued influence effect. In pursuit of more effective corrections, one factor that has not yet been investigated systematically is the narrative versus non-narrative format of the correction.…

This article explores how the philosophy for children (P4C) pedagogical model might be well positioned to support the educational strategies associated with the prevention of violent extremism, through early intervention in children's concept development. Specifically, it considers how the stereotyping of concepts risks interfering with children's…