Background: Recent complex and cross-boundary policy problems, such as climate change, pandemics, and financial crises, have recentred debates about state capacity, democratic discontent and the 'crisis of expertise'. These problems are contested and open to redefinition, misunderstanding, spin, and deception, challenging the ability of…

Critical thinking (CT) skills are generally considered to be vital to success at university, but Asian students are sometimes perceived as lacking these skills. This research explores the effect that thinking in a second language has on CT performance. To assess this, two groups of students were tested on a split-test version of the "Watson…

Grade 1 literacy skills of twin children in Australia (New South Wales) and the United States (Colorado) were explored in a genetically sensitive design (N = 319 pairs). Analyses indicated strong genetic influence on word and nonword identification, reading comprehension, and spelling. Rapid naming showed more modest, though reliable, genetic…

Reports the results of two studies designed to investigate the presence of six cognitive levels of intellectual performance as predicted by Bloom's taxonomy. Results of both experiments revealed a performance dichotomy with synthesis and evaluation forming the superior category. Includes examples of the text items used and draws implications for…

Reports on a study of four Australian 11th-grade biology students that used stimulated recall to evaluate student thinking processes.The study confirmed the complexity of the teaching-learning process. (MD)

Three experimental tasks were devised to assess the nature of memory processing limitations in fourth-graders' oral reading comprehension. (Author/MP)

This document presents the proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of this conference is "Navigating Currents and Charting Directions." The theme reminds us that, although we are constantly pushed to account for the quality and impact of our research, we…