Informal statistical inference (ISI) has been a frequent focus of recent research in statistics education. Considering the role that context plays in developing ISI calls into question the need to be more explicit about the reasoning that underpins ISI. This paper uses educational literature on informal statistical inference and philosophical…

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…

Some intensive quantities, such as slope, velocity, or likelihood, are perceptually privileged in the sense that they are experienced as holistic, irreducible sensations. However, the formal expression of these quantities uses "a/b" analytic metrics; for example, the slope of a line is the quotient of its rise and run. Thus, whereas students'…

Turner syndrome is a common genetic disorder associated with select deficits in executive functions, working memory and mathematics. In Study 1, we examined growth trajectories of skills in these areas, from grades 1 to 6, among girls with or without Turner syndrome. Rates of growth and performance levels at 6th grade, on an untimed math…

Comparing and contrasting examples is a core cognitive process that supports learning in children and adults across a variety of topics. In this experimental study, we evaluated the benefits of supporting comparison in a classroom context for children learning about computational estimation. Fifth- and sixth-grade students (N = 157) learned about…

Concept mapping is discussed as a means to promote meaningful learning and in particular progress in reading comprehension skills. Its increasing implementation necessitates the acquisition of adequate knowledge about frequent errors in order to make available an effective introduction to the new learning method. To analyse causes of errors, 283…

The masked priming paradigm was used to examine the role of the root and verb pattern morphemes in lexical access within the verb system of Arabic. Three groups participated in the study: grade 6 dyslexics, a reading-level-matched group and grade 6 normal readers. The first group consisted of: 28 grade 6 reading disabled (RD) students, 8 girls and…

We propose that researchers should utilize ratio scores when examining the response styles theory rather than examine each of the response styles separately. Higher ratio scores indicate a higher probability of engaging in ruminative, as opposed to distracting and problem solving, behaviors. In Phase One, we examined the factor structure and…

Ubiquitous computing and mobile technologies provide a new perspective for designing innovative outdoor learning experiences. The purpose of this study is to propose a formative assessment design for integrating PDAs into ecology observations. Three learning activities were conducted in this study. An action research approach was applied to…

This study examined anxiety- and depression-related cognitive content in children. We developed the Children's Thought Questionnaire (CTQ) to include anxious thoughts characterized by threat and uncertainty; depressive thoughts by loss, self-deprecation, and certainty/hopelessness; and positive thoughts by interest, pleasure, and positive…

Two studies evaluated the interhemispheric transmission deficit explanation of reading disability by comparing second- and sixth-grade normal and poor readers on learning and discrimination tasks involving hemispheric presentations of visual stimuli. Results suggested verbal processing rather than interhemispheric transmission as a cause of group…

A study was conducted among approximately 1,000 sixth-grade students in 22 classes to examine the effects on achievement of the "Spell Correctly" program (control group) and the "Spell Correctly" supplemented with the Stetson Reading-Spelling Approach (experimental group). The "Spell Correctly" program is characterized by its emphasis on learning…

This paper explores the phenomenon of mathematical understanding, and offers a response to the question raised by Martin (2001) at PME-NA about the possibility for and nature of collective mathematical understanding. In referring to collective mathematical understanding we point to the kinds of learning and understanding we may see occurring when…

The development and use of item shells in the construction of a series of standardized tests of reading comprehension at the elementary school level are described. An item shell is an item that is devoid of specific content, but contains key words and a distinctive syntactic structure. The specific content of the item shell varies depending on the…

The study analyses the effects of training primary school children in the use of a linguistic tool called "Exploratory Talk" (ET) on their capacity for argumentation. ET allows for reasoned confrontation and negotiation of points of view, making the reasoning visible in the talk. Eighty-eight Mexican children from the 5th and 6th grades…