Pathways From Spatial Skills to Mathematics: The Roles of Gender and Fluid Reasoning.

There are contentious and persistent gender differences reported in some measures of spatial skills, particularly mental rotation and, to a lesser extent, perspective-taking, which may have an impact on mathematics success. Furthermore, pathways between spatial skills and mathematics may be mediated by other cognitive factors, such as fluid reasoning. Participants (N = 320, age range 8-12 years) completed measures of mental rotation, perspective-taking, fluid reasoning, and mathematics.

Tracking informal fraction knowledge and its correlates across first grade.

Young children have informal knowledge of fractions before learning about fraction symbols in school. In the current study, we followed 103 children in the Mid-Atlantic United States from the fall to the spring of first grade to characterize the development of individual differences in early informal fraction knowledge, as well as its relation to other mathematical and cognitive skills. Most children in our sample showed some early fraction knowledge at the beginning of first grade, especially with nonsymbolic fractions and halving, and this knowledge improved over the school year without explicit instruction in fractions.

Magnitude, numerosity, and development of number: Implications for mathematics disabilities.

Leibovich et al. challenge the prevailing view that non-symbolic number sense (e.g.

Parents' and Experts' Awareness of Learning Opportunities in Children's Museum Exhibits.

Informal learning outside of school are crucial for a child's development. Children's museums, in particular, are environments conducive to this sort of learning, especially when parents guide children's exploration. However, research suggests a gap between parents' and experts' perceptions of the value of informal learning.

Using analogy to learn about phenomena at scales outside human perception.

Understanding and reasoning about phenomena at scales outside human perception (for example, geologic time) is critical across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Thus, devising strong methods to support acquisition of reasoning at such scales is an important goal in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. In two experiments, we examine the use of analogical principles in learning about geologic time.

Pathways to fraction learning: Numerical abilities mediate the relation between early cognitive competencies and later fraction knowledge.

The current study investigated the mediating role of number-related skills in the developmental relationship between early cognitive competencies and later fraction knowledge using structural equation modeling. Fifth-grade numerical skills (i.e.

Delaware Longitudinal Study of Fraction Learning: Implications for Helping Children With Mathematics Difficulties.

The goal of the present article is to synthesize findings to date from the Delaware Longitudinal Study of Fraction Learning. The study followed a large cohort of children ( N = 536) between Grades 3 and 6. The findings showed that many students, especially those with diagnosed learning disabilities, made minimal growth in fraction knowledge and that some showed only a basic grasp of the meaning of a fraction even after several years of instruction.

Dealing with Big Numbers: Representation and Understanding of Magnitudes Outside of Human Experience.

Being able to estimate quantity is important in everyday life and for success in the STEM disciplines. However, people have difficulty reasoning about magnitudes outside of human perception (e.g.

Developmental growth trajectories in understanding of fraction magnitude from fourth through sixth grade.

Development of fraction number line estimation was assessed longitudinally over 5 time points between 4th and 6th grades. Although students showed positive linear growth overall, latent class growth analyses revealed 3 distinct growth trajectory classes: Students who were highly accurate from the start and became even more accurate (n = 154); students who started inaccurate but showed steep growth (n = 121); and students who started inaccurate and showed minimal growth (n = 197). Younger and minimal growth students typically estimated both proper and improper fractions as being less than 1, failing to base estimates on the relation between the numerator and denominator.

Seeing Like a Geologist: Bayesian Use of Expert Categories in Location Memory.

Memory for spatial location is typically biased, with errors trending toward the center of a surrounding region. According to the category adjustment model (CAM), this bias reflects the optimal, Bayesian combination of fine-grained and categorical representations of a location. However, there is disagreement about whether categories are malleable.

Breaking new ground in the mind: an initial study of mental brittle transformation and mental rigid rotation in science experts.

The current study examines the spatial skills employed in different spatial reasoning tasks, by asking how science experts who are practiced in different types of visualizations perform on different spatial tasks. Specifically, the current study examines the varieties of mental transformations. We hypothesize that there may be two broad classes of mental transformations: rigid body mental transformations and non-rigid mental transformations.

Health worker attitudes toward peer workers in hepatitis C prevention.

Attitudes toward people who inject drugs (PWID) and attitudes toward peer workers among a cross-section of 101 Australian hepatitis C health workers were assessed. A survey consisting of Likert-type questions and one open-ended question regarding training was used. Bivariate and regression analyses demonstrated that health workers' attitudes toward peer workers were associated with their attitudes toward PWID, independent of type of organization or time in the hepatitis C sector.

Perceptions of discriminatory treatment by staff as predictors of drug treatment completion: utility of a mixed methods approach.

Introduction And Aims: Staff interactions with their clients are an important factor in the quality of care that is provided to people in drug treatment. Yet there is very little research that addresses staff attitudes or clients' perceptions of discrimination and prejudice by staff with regard to treatment outcomes. This research aimed to assess whether perceptions of discrimination by staff predict drug treatment completion.

Exploring the role of consumer participation in drug treatment.

Despite recognition of the benefits of involving consumers in their own treatment, there is little research on consumer participation in drug treatment. This paper focuses on clients who use illicit substances and the role of consumer participation in their self-reported satisfaction with their drug treatment and sense of goal achievement in that treatment. As part of a secondary analysis, the data from 492 participants who had previously or who were currently engaged in drug treatment were analysed to assess the importance of consumer participation in drug treatment.