Compares thought patterns, perceptions of interaction (perceived interaction smoothness and interaction involvement), and conversation orientation of U.S. students in dyadic interaction with a partner who is either another American or a non-American nonnative speaker of English. Finds U.S. participants with nonnative-speaking partners perceived…

Comments on the mistrustful attitude toward feeling and the biological body in feminist theories of performance. Proposes that recent developments in cognitive neuroscience and neurophysiology can provide a way to reengage issues of feeling, consciousness and performance. Calls for feminists to reconsider not only Stanislavsky-based approaches to…

Focuses on two unrelated matters that are central to the study of how language acquisition works: (1) the role of input in the acquisition of a first language, particularly how children are able to avoid the potentially damaging effects of misleading feedback; and (2) the role of a particular aspect of cognition in second language learning, namely…

Encourages teachers to model the thinking processes that take place as one begins to read and write. Notes that when a teacher thinks aloud as he or she writes, children can better grasp the inner dialogue that occurs. Explains components of the guided writing process and discusses simple suggestions as well as the benefits for early childhood…

Bilingual speakers of Irish and English were recorded as they produced narratives based on pictures from the book, "Frog, Where Are You?" The narratives were analyzed according to certain features of global and local structure. Differences within narratives emerged in number of components included, number of planning components explicitly marked…

Examines the relationship between the graphical user interface (GUI) and the cognitive demands placed on the learner in eLearning (electronic learning) environments. Describes ways educators can design appropriate interfaces to facilitate meaningful interactions with educational content; and examines learner engagement and engagement theory using…

The gender category system is presented as a prototype of all social cognitive category systems. (Author/BB)

The study with 99 13 to 18-year-old Black students in the Soweto (South Africa) Gifted Child Program indicated that 50-58 percent of the variance in performance was accounted for by 2 subtests (the Verbal Analogies Test and the Organiser) of the Learning Potential Assessment Device and the Similarities subtests of the Wechsler scales. (Author/DB)

Self-report measures of physical activity have attractive features for epidemiologists and behavior change specialists. An information processing model is proposed to understand the encoding, storage, and retrieval processes, and to identify necessary skills for accurate self-reporting identified at each step in the process. (JD)

Discusses students' ability to make correct judgments about the accuracy of information they read and describes a study of secondary school students that was designed to determine the value of headings and outlines in detecting false statements in text. Treatments for the experimental and control groups are described. (18 references) (LRW)

The Enlightenment established and bequeathed to us the scientific attitude as the proper approach to acquiring knowledge, replacing the philosophical inquiry which characterized ancient scholarship. Consequently, modern students are the passive recipients of ready-made abstract forms--theories, concepts, definitions, methods, etc.--which, in the…

Analysis of second-language literacy is discussed in light of first-language perspectives on literacy, reading, and writing, and expanding these perspectives into second-language contexts. The current perspectives on literacy are also identified and reviewed. (GLR)

Provides an experimental validation of Landau and Gleitman's (1985) syntactic bootstrapping procedure on how children may use syntactic information to learn new verbs. The children's choice of the correct referent for a given verb versus a nonsense verb in two syntactic structures is explained. (37 references) (GLR)

Findings from a study of 111 high school biology students indicate that students who received instruction combining a pictorial analogy comparing the cell to a factory and an analogical study guide displayed significantly better comprehension of this material than did their peers, whose instruction did not include the pictorial representation.…

Findings indicated that: (1) 10- and 13-year-olds had difficulty accepting contrary-to-fact premises as a basis for reasoning; (2) 15- and 18-year-olds found reasoning correctly more difficult with contrary-to-fact premises; and (3) among 5- and 7-year-olds, a fantasy context decreased the extent to which empirical knowledge interfered with…