It is widely believed that television viewing has a negative impact on school achievement. This belief is supported by negative statistical associations sometimes found between school achievement and amount of television viewing; that is, heavy TV viewers tend to show poorer achievement than light viewers. One possible explanation of this…

The research reported here focuses on the cognitive processes involved in creole genesis: relexification; reanalysis; dialect levelling; and parameter setting. The role of these processes in creole genesis is documented in a detailed comparison of Haitian Creole with two of its major source languages: French, its main lexifier language, and…

The 63 items on skills in acquiring and using information from written documents contained in the Survey of Young Adult Literacy in the 1985 National Assessment of Educational Progress are analyzed. The analyses are based on a qualitative cognitive model and an item-response theory model. (TJH)

In this article, the author critiques six articles. Five of the six articles are about motivation in language learning, an area which has seen considerable theoretical and empirical development over the last decade. The articles she reviews include: (1) Udo Jung's report on the top twelve "most prestigious FLT (foreign language teaching) journals"…

The use of mass media as a means of learning a foreign language from the beginning of language study is discussed. Using the media enables many of the features of the natural language acquisition process to be brought into play in a way that much current language teaching material does not. This position is supported by recent research into the…

In the action-research phase of the Learning in Science Project, four groups of people worked on problems identified in the project's second (in-depth) phase. The Physics action-research group considered problems related to the teaching and learning of ideas associated with force and motion, suggesting that children's ideas of these concepts might…

Studies in the field of economics education indicate that teachers prefer content and a subject-oriented curriculum, while students favor a more personal relationship with the teacher and recognition as unique individuals. Mastery of subject matter is not as important to economics students. As a result, the following problems may occur in the…

Causes of cognitive underdevelopment in Zulu children and the cognitive functions necessary for efficient school learning are outlined. To assess potential for learning and to remediate cognitive underfunctioning, 20 secondary students analyzed, organized, and reproduced a complex geometric figure. Positive effects were evident following specific…

Current thinking of researchers from different disciplines about interaction among students in educational settings and the potential of peer interaction for learning and cognitive development is discussed. Topics of the eight papers presented include: potential outcomes of peer interaction, its nature, peer learning settings, and factors shaping…

Explores the cognitive assessment of classroom learning and emphasizes applications in urban settings for at-risk students. It is argued that cognitive assessment by the classroom teacher is essential to fostering the achievement of cognitive and metacognitive learning that is called for in national reports. (SLD)

Socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with cognitive ability and achievement during childhood and beyond. Little is known about the developmental relationships between SES and specific brain systems or their associated cognitive functions. In this study we assessed neurocognitive functioning of kindergarteners from different…

A Computer Tutor for Writers (CTW) was designed to provide procedural facilitation to high school students while they learn the skills and knowledge associated with composition writing. Four previous year-long studies helped identify how to facilitate specific elements of the writing process. The CTW was designed to combine lessons learned from…

Issues in the testing of bilinguals are examined, particularly in the context of poor results attained on standardized tests by bilingual children. Discussion begins with an examination of definitions and classification of bilingualism, citing some evidence of confusion in use of terminology. Causes for this confusion are seen in popular…

Interactive radio instruction has gained attention as a low-cost means of improving the academic achievement of primary school students. The Radio Mathematics Project in Nicaragua and subsequent programs developed by the Learning Technologies for Basic Education (LearnTech) Project illustrate the evolution such programs have undergone as…

The paper analyzes the dialogical interaction between a group of third graders and their teacher in one classroom episode. The semiotic and cognitive activity of the dialogical interaction is considered to be an "interpreting game". The episode exemplifies how in dialogical interaction the back-and-forth loops of interpretation, intention, and…