This investigation examined the ability of 44 preschool children to acquire novel words embedded in storybook contexts. Previous investigations of word learning have typically consisted of novel words for which synonyms exist. It is argued that the acquisition of unfamiliar words that refer to existing concepts that already have labels is not…

The 1973 Raising of the School Leaving Age from 15 to 16 has been used to identify returns to years' schooling. However, because the first set of "high stakes" exams are taken in the UK at age 16, the reform affected the proportion with qualifications, as well as schooling length. In order to shed light on whether the returns reflect the…

Effectively teaching the concepts of osmosis to college-level students is a major obstacle in biological education. Therefore, a novel computer model is presented that allows students to observe the random nature of particle motion simultaneously with the seemingly directed net flow of water across a semipermeable membrane during osmotic…

Experimental data are analysed statistically to allow researchers to draw conclusions from a limited set of measurements. The hard fact is that researchers can never be certain that measurements from a sample will exactly reflect the properties of the entire group of possible candidates available to be studied (although using a sample is often the…

Malay (Rumi) is alphabetic and has a transparent, agglutinative system of affixation. We manipulated language-specific junctural phonetics in Malay and English to investigate whether morphophonemic L1-knowledge influences L2-processing. A morpheme decision task, "Does this "nonword" sound like a mono- or bi-morphemic English word?", was developed…

Complex survey data are collected by means other than simple random samples. This creates two analytical issues: nonindependence and unequal selection probability. Failing to address these issues results in underestimated standard errors and biased parameter estimates. Using data from the nationally representative Head Start Family and Child…

This study investigated the accuracy of several early literacy measures that have been used in research and practice for first grade reading screening. A set of measures, Word Identification Fluency (WIF), Letter Naming Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, and Nonsense Word Fluency, were administered as screening measures with 138 first grade…

This study elaborates the Rasch differential item functioning (DIF) model formulation under the marginal maximum likelihood estimation context. Also, the Rasch DIF model performance was examined and compared with the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) procedure in small sample and short test length conditions through simulations. The theoretically known…

We study the relationship between parental job loss and children's academic achievement using data on job loss and grade retention from the 1996, 2001, and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We find that a parental job loss increases the probability of children's grade retention by 0.8 percentage points, or around 15%.…

Swift and Greenberg (2012) observed that variables influencing the decision to drop out fluctuate according to the primary presenting problem, the amount of structure in therapy, the length of treatment, and the clinical setting. Due to these reports, researchers may focus on predictors of premature termination (PT) in treatment settings where the…

U.S. social programs, set up to address important problems, often fall short by funding specific models/strategies ("interventions") that are not effective. When evaluated in scientifically-rigorous studies, social interventions in K-12 education, job training, crime prevention, and other areas are frequently found ineffective or…

Although activity in premotor and motor cortices is commonly observed in neuroimaging studies of spoken language processing, the degree to which this activity is an obligatory part of everyday speech comprehension remains unclear. We hypothesised that rather than being a unitary phenomenon, the neural response to speech perception in motor regions…

Although peer influence is a salient predictor of delinquency, how it operates in the etiology of runaway behavior is not fully understood. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study demonstrates the importance of taking peers into account in understanding the etiology of running away. The findings suggest…

When playing percussion instruments, the main activity is done with the help of a motion or motor skills; to perform it, developed fine motor skills are necessary: the speed and precision of fingers, hands and palms. The aim of the research was to study and test the development of young adults' fine motor skills while learning to play percussion…

Most students love to play games. Ernest (1986) believed that games could be used to teach mathematics effectively in four areas: motivation, concept development, reinforcement of skills, and practice of problem-solving strategies. Fifteen is an interesting and thought-provoking game that helps students learn mathematics at the same time. Playing…