This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of…

In this article, we consolidate and present in one place what is known about quality indicators for setting standards so that stakeholders may be able to recognize the signs of standard-setting quality. We use the context of setting standards to associate English language test scores with language proficiency descriptions such as those presented…

The International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) studied the extent to which young people have developed computer and information literacy (CIL) to support their capacity to participate in the digital age. Many countries recognize the importance that education in information and communication technologies (ICT) has for enabling…

The advent of policies at research-funding organizations requiring grantees to make their funded research openly accessible alters the life cycle of scholarly research. This survey-based study explores the approaches that libraries and research administration offices at the major Canadian universities are employing to support the…

A random sample of 167 secondary special and general educators who taught math to students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and learning disabilities (LD) responded to a mail survey. The survey examined teacher perceptions of (a) definition of math; (b) familiarity with course topics; (c) effectiveness of methods courses; (d)…

Reviews the literature on the effect of prior knowledge and text familiarity on document comprehension and usability. Discusses current methods for assessing subjects' topic familiarity. Presents an empirically based method for effectively assessing topic familiarity. Explains that the method includes use of two subject groups and reliance on…

Elementary and secondary students (N=150) were given a forced-choice task of idiom understanding. Performance on tasks steadily improved with age, and idioms with higher familiarity and transparency were easier for students to understand. Results support the language experience model of figurative language development and the hypothesis that…

This study examined effects of familiarity with a speech target on coarticulation magnitude in 30 young children and 10 adults. Children exhibited a greater effect of a following vowel on the preceding fricative than did adults. Nonmeaningful production items exhibited greater effects of the vowel on the preceding fricative than did meaningful…

Thirty-two subjects (5 Broca's, 7 conduction, and 10 anomic aphasics and 10 normal controls) performed story retell and procedural discourse tasks containing familiar and unfamiliar topics, with familiar and unfamiliar listeners. Results indicated that topic familiarity significantly influenced verbal output in both normal and aphasic subjects.…

Evaluation of the role of concreteness and familiarity in the development of proverb comprehension in 180 students in grades 5, 8, and 11 found that both concreteness and familiarity as well as student age, influenced comprehension. Results support the "metasemantic" and the "language experience" hypotheses of language comprehension development.…

Two studies compared the performance of Puerto Rican and African American Head Start children (total n=134) on familiar (description) and unfamiliar (one word labeling) test tasks. Results indicated children performed better on the familiar test task, which was also more sensitive in differentiating typically developing children from those with…

This paper describes the effects of science teacher subject-matter knowledge on classroom discourse at the level of individual utterances. It details one of three parallel analyses conducted in a year-long study of language in the classrooms of four new biology teachers. The conceptual framework of the study predicted that when teaching unfamiliar…

Presents results of a survey comparing British and U.S. political scientists' familiarity with different journals, evaluations of journal quality, and measures of journal impact. Concludes that British and U.S. subjects agree about quality but read different sets of journals. Reports the two groups' familiarity with different literature,…

Presents the results of a study suggesting that economic knowledge, whether measured by a general score or knowledge of a particular issue, is the most consistent and influential factor affecting public opinion. Surveyed a broad range of participants concerning five complex issues of economic policy. Includes questions, tables, and statistics.…

Eighteen language/learning-disabled adolescents were compared with 18 nondisabled adolescents and 18 linguistically matched nondisabled preadolescents on requesting assistance from listeners who vary in power and familiarity. The language learning-disabled adolescents were sensitive to social and contextual features and modified their requests…