Children acquire argument structure through distributional evidence, but how does this interacts with event semantics and existing verb knowledge? The current study compares verb learning in adult speakers of Japanese (where lexical causatives span wider semantic categories) and English (where alternation is more restricted). In the Fully…

Over the past decade, infographics have become a ubiquitous genre-circulated in mass media, posted on walls in public spaces, shared on social media sites; and more recently, assigned as reading and writing assignments in academic classes. Their ubiquity and appeal as a visual representation of processes and data make them a promising genre for…

This study explores the impact of talks by university researchers in different formats on students' perceptions of research. Undergraduate students (N = 222) were randomly assigned to watch research talks via video recording (n = 78), research talks presented live (n = 67), or a control group (n = 77). Students completed pre-intervention (Time 1)…

Recent research has supported the use of student-centered teaching practices, such as active learning, because of its effectiveness in improving student learning and retention when compared with traditional, lecture-based teaching practices. Despite evidence supporting the effectiveness of active learning in improving STEM undergraduate education,…

Two experiments are reported to investigate whether Chinese readers skip a high-frequency preview word without taking the syntax of the sentence context into account. In Experiment 1, we manipulated target word syntactic category, frequency, and preview using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). For high-frequency verb targets, there were…

Human production and consumption activities are depleting the earth's resources faster than they are being replenished. The Global Footprint network estimates "Earth Overshoot Day 2020" (the day the use of natural resources during the year crosses the regeneration capacity for the year) to be 22 August. A shift from linear to circular…

Background: Individuals with intellectual disability are subject to stigmatization, even among those providing services to them. Method: Employees from an intermediate care facility (n = 97) and undergraduate students (n = 92) completed measures on their attitudes, beliefs of etiological causes and endorsement of helpful treatments and supports.…

Scaffolding has been shown to facilitate students' text comprehension and task performance. Yet less is known about the necessity of scaffolding for competent students reading unfamiliar content. To explore that question, we investigated the effects of two knowledge scaffolding techniques (i.e., mobilization and concept mapping) versus control on…

Glosses have been assumed to be effective for developing vocabulary. This article discusses a within-subject quasi-experiment which investigated the relative effectiveness of four vocabulary gloss types: L1 gloss, L1 gloss with phonological guidance, L2 gloss, and L2 gloss with phonological guidance. The participants were 63 Iranian undergraduate…

The degree to which meanings are related in memory affects ambiguous word processing. We examined irregular polysemes, which have related senses based on similar or shared features rather than a relational rule, like regular polysemy. We tested to what degree the related meanings of irregular polysemes ("wire") are represented with…

Studies on predicative metaphors like "The rumor flew through the office" have not received due attention until recently. Through a behavioural experiment, this study investigates the cognitive mechanisms as well as the effects of familiarity on Chinese EFL learners' comprehension of English predicative metaphors, adopting a two factors…

In this study, the authors examine the impact of a community service learning course on undergraduate students' decisions to pursue careers as special education teachers or related service providers. Participants (N = 134) completed a course involving volunteer service with persons with disabilities in the local community and were surveyed as to…

Driven by the critical period hypothesis (CPH), Kachru's (1985) World Englishes paradigm, and Krashen's (1982) theory of second language acquisition (SLA), this study examined instructors and learners' attitudes toward English as an International Language (EIL) speaking instruction in Saudi Arabia and whether exposure to EIL speaking instruction…

Introduction to Management Information Systems (MIS) is a challenging course to teach because of the broad expanse of rapidly-changing material, the centrality of the course to the business curriculum, students' demand for interactive teaching rather than traditional lecture, and general student disinterest in or lack of familiarity with the…

Crowdsourcing is an important tool for collecting spatio-temporal data, which has various applications in education. The objectives of this study were to develop and test a laboratory exercise on soil erosion by water and field data crowdsourcing in an online introductory soil science course (FNR 2040: Soil Information Systems) at Clemson…