This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link between age and proficiency in information-processing skills, based on information drawn from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The data reveal significant age-related differences in proficiencies, strongly suggesting that proficiency tends to "naturally" decline with age. Age…

Despite compulsory mathematics throughout primary and junior secondary schooling, many schools across Australia continue in their struggle to achieve satisfactory numeracy levels. Numeracy is not a distinct subject in school curriculum, and in fact appears as a general capability in the Australian Curriculum, wherein all teachers across all…

This work has its origins with research into the effects of pedagogy on student engagement and learning outcomes. It summarises the development of self-report and observation instruments for measuring student engagement suitable for early years to senior secondary. The measures are sensitive to the context and experience of learning rather than,…

This study examined primary school teachers' knowledge of anxiety and excessive anxiety symptoms in children. Three hundred and fifteen primary school teachers completed a questionnaire exploring their definitions of anxiety and the indications they associated with excessive anxiety in primary school children. Results showed that teachers had an…

This paper reports a study that examines the integration of tablet technologies such as iPads into literacy lessons to investigate how reading and meaning-making occur within this digital medium. Specifically in this paper, we discuss the concept of reading paths as applied to physical and cognitive planes of meaning-making. The paper reports on…

As part of a longitudinal study, infant/toddler pretend play development and maternal play modelling were investigated in dyadic context. A total of 21 children were videotaped in monthly play sessions with their mothers, from age 8 to 17 months. Child and mother pretend play frequencies and levels were measured using Brown's Pretend Play…

Gap thinking has been categorised as one of several whole number strategies that interfere with early fraction understanding. This study showed that this claim is not supported by interview data of Grade 6 students' gap thinking explanations during a fraction pair comparison task. A correlation with equivalence performance was uncovered, leading…

On the contingent capture account, top-down attentional control settings restrict involuntary attentional capture to items that match the features of the search target. Attention capture is involuntary, but contingent on goals and intentions. The observation that only target-similar items can capture attention has usually been taken to show that…

To study the temporal dynamics and capacity-limits of attentional selection and encoding, researchers often employ the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon: subjects' impaired ability to report the second of two targets in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream that appear within 200-500 ms of one another. The AB has now been the subject of…

Engaging students in effective technology use and literacy learning is an ongoing challenge, particularly for students who are impacted by poverty. Exemplary teaching and teachers' pedagogical choices play a critical role in addressing this challenge. This paper illustrates the practices of teachers, identified to be exemplary in engaging students…

Efficacy of a teaching strategy technically refers to the ability of that strategy to produce a desired or intended learning outcomes. To date, there is little information on the efficacy of social media technologies in academia and it is likely to be some time before their effectiveness is proven. It is therefore legitimate to ask the question,…

I interrogate my personal diaries documenting my life in New York, Beijing, Tokyo, and Sydney over a 20-year period. Taking bearings from Bakhtinian thoughts, I explore the emergence of my post-diasporic identity as a second generation Korean American through watching South Korean dramas. By conversing with journals kept over a 20-year period, I…

Primary school teachers are often tasked with puberty/sexuality education for students who are undergoing sexual maturation at ever-earlier ages. This study explores the changing trajectories of the pre-service learning and teaching of primary school puberty/sexuality education at an urban university, including student-teachers' childhood…

This paper is concerned with the general issues of ageing, learning, and education for the elderly. It also examines the more specific issues of why, how and what elders want to learn. The world's population is ageing rapidly. For example, it is estimated that by 2020 20% of the population in the USA will be 65 years old and over. It is predicted…

Decision-makers effortlessly balance the need for urgency against the need for caution. Theoretical and neurophysiological accounts have explained this tradeoff solely in terms of the "quantity" of evidence required to trigger a decision (the "threshold"). This explanation has also been used as a benchmark test for evaluating…