In 2005, the first mother to be sentenced to jail because her eldest daughter persistently truanted was sentenced for a second time because she "failed" to stop her younger daughter from missing school. This story certainly exposes the links between education and punishment for working-class children and families, and the ways in which…

Background: This study examines the role of decoding and vocabulary skills as longitudinal predictors of reading comprehension in young first (L1) and second (L2) language learners. Methods: Two-group latent growth models were used to assess differences in growth and predictions of growth between the 198 L1 and 90 L2 language learners. Results: L1…

Intuitive predictions and judgments under conditions of uncertainty are often mediated by judgment heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Using the classical conjunction bias example, the present study examines the relationship between receptivity to metacognitive executive training and emotion-based learning ability indexed by Iowa Gambling…

This study examined epistemic metacognition as a reflective activity about knowledge and knowing in the context of online information searching on the Web, and whether it was related to prior knowledge on the topic, study approach, and domain-specific beliefs about science. In addition, we investigated whether Internet-based learning was…

Previous research has established that a relationship exists between the personality trait of conscientiousness and academic achievement. The current study extends prior research by using a path analysis model to explore various proximal traits that may mediate this relationship in a sample of two hundred and twenty three undergraduate university…

The main goal for the current study was to investigate whether individual differences in domain-general thinking dispositions might affect learning from multiple-document inquiry tasks in science. Middle school students were given a set of documents and were tasked with understanding how and why recent patterns in global temperature might be…

A great deal of research into second-language (L2) development focuses on the role of cognitive factors and other individual differences. Studies of children and prime-of-life adult L2 learners suggest that differences exist in the learning processes of these groups. However, to date, little empirical work has been conducted with older adult…

Community colleges occupy a growing role in the American education system. Their unique cross-section of students poses a challenge for teachers of political science. This paper uses information from a survey completed by over 2,000 students at 20 colleges and universities across the United States to shed light on some of the most significant…

The use of standard-based assessment, grading and reporting tools is essential to ensure that assessment meets acceptable levels of quality and standardization. This study reports the design, development and evaluation of a standards-based assessment tool for the instructors at Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman. The Rapid Applications…

The goal of this experimental study was to evaluate the influence of course type, instructor and student gender, and student individual differences (domain-specific vocational interests and confidence, personality, and gender role attitudes) on student evaluation of teaching (SET) scores. A sample of 610 college students (372 female) rated…

Diversity is defined as differences in groups of people and individuals based on ethnicity, race, language, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, exceptionalities, and religion. Each of these aspects of diversity is a "culture" in and of itself. The goal of physical education teachers is to become "culturally responsive teachers" and…

Motivated by cognitive-interactionist frameworks for task-based learning, this study explores whether task complexity affects the extent to which learners focus on form-meaning connections during task-based work in a classroom setting, and whether this relationship is modulated by 3 individual difference factors--linguistic self-confidence,…

There is accumulating evidence that individual differences in stress reactivity contribute to the risk for stress-related disease. However, the assessment of stress reactivity remains challenging, and there is a relative lack of questionnaires reliably assessing this construct. We here present the Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS), a…

This paper explores students' conceptions of good teaching in three different disciplines. Moreover, the aim is to explore the relation between these conceptions and students' approaches to learning by combining qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 695 students from the Faculties of Behavioural Sciences, Law and Veterinary Medicine…

Building on an existing latent variable analysis of executive function (EF) in children (N=191, 57% boys and 43% girls) making the transition to school (Hughes et al. (2010), "Developmental Neuropsychology", vol. 35, pp. 20-36), the current study both documented average developmental improvements from 4 to 6 years of age and examined individual…