Six experiments investigated variables predicted to influence subjects' tendency to classify items by a single property ("rule-based" responding) instead of overall similarity, following the paradigm of Norenzayan et al. (2002, "Cognitive Science"), who found that European Americans tended to give more "logical"…

Student experience surveys have become increasingly popular to probe various aspects of processes and outcomes in higher education, such as measuring student perceptions of the learning environment and identifying aspects that could be improved. This paper reports on a particular survey for evaluating individual experiments that has been developed…

The illusion of understanding hypothesis asserts that, when people are learning with multimedia presentations, the addition of animation can affect metacognitive monitoring such that they perceive the presentation to be easier to understand and develop more optimistic metacomprehension. As a result, learners invest less cognitive effort when…

A survey was conducted of four-year institutions that teach undergraduate organic chemistry laboratories in the United States. The data include results from over 130 schools, describes the current practices at these institutions, and discusses the statistical results such as the scale of the laboratories performed, the chemical techniques applied,…

Background: It has been proposed that motivational responses outside people's conscious awareness can be primed to affect academic performance. The current research focused on the relationship between primed evaluative letters (A and F), explicit and implicit achievement motivation, and cognitive performance. Aim: Given the evaluative connotation…

Relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1995) suggests that people expend cognitive effort when processing information in proportion to the cognitive effects to be gained from doing so. This theory has been used to explain how people apply their knowledge appropriately when evaluating category-based inductive arguments (Medin, Coley, Storms, &…

The present research investigated effects of message framing (losses-framed or gains-framed), message modality (video with text or text-only) and emotional arousal on environmentally responsible behavioral intentions. The sample consisted of 161 college students. The present research did not find a significant difference in behavioral intentions…

Udergraduate students may be attracted to science and retained in science by engaging in laboratory research. Experience as an apprentice in a scientist's laboratory can be effective in this regard, but the pool of willing scientists is sometimes limited and sustained contact between students and faculty is sometimes minimal. We report outcomes…

Norenzayan, Smith, Jun Kim, and Nisbett (2002) investigated cultural differences in the use of intuitive versus formal reasoning in 4 experiments. Our comment concerns the 4th experiment where Norenzayan et al. reported that, although there were no cultural differences in accuracy on abstract logical arguments, Koreans made more errors than U.S.…