One way children are remarkable learners is that they learn from others. Critically, children are selective when assessing from whom to learn, particularly in the domain of word learning. We conducted an analysis of children's selective word learning, reviewing 63 papers on 6,525 participants. Children's ability to engage in selective word learning appeared to be present in the youngest samples surveyed. Their more metacognitive understanding that epistemic competence indicates reliability or that others are good sources of knowledge has more of a developmental trajectory. We also found that various methodological factors used to assess children influence performance. We conclude with a synthesis of theoretical accounts of how children learn from others.

Individual differences in children's number knowledge arise early and are associated with variation in parents' number talk. However, there exists little experimental evidence of a causal link between parent number talk and children's number knowledge. Parent number talk was manipulated by creating picture books which parents were asked to read with their children every day for 4 weeks.N = 100 two- to four-year olds and their parents were randomly assigned to read either Small Number (1-3), Large Number (4-6), or Control (non-numerical) books. Small Number books were particularly effective in promoting number knowledge relative to the Control books. However, children who began the study further along in their number development also benefited from reading the Large Number Books with their parents.

Burgeoning evidence suggests that when children observe data, they use knowledge of the demonstrator's intent to augment learning. We propose that the effects of social learning may go beyond cases where children observe data, to cases where they receive no new information at all. We present a model of how simply asking a question a second time may lead to belief revision, when the questioner is expected to know the correct answer. We provide an analysis of the CHILDES corpus to show that these neutral follow‐up questions are used in parent–child conversations. We then present three experiments investigating 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children's reactions to neutral follow‐up questions posed by ignorant or knowledgeable questioners. Children were more likely to change their answers in response to a neutral follow‐up question from a knowledgeable questioner than an ignorant one. We discuss the implications of these results in the context of common practices in legal, educational, and experimental psychological settings.

We know that reading involves coordination between textual characteristics and visual attention, but research linking eye movements during reading and comprehension assessed after reading is surprisingly limited, especially for reading long connected texts. We tested two competing possibilities: (a) the weak association hypothesis: Links between eye movements and comprehension are weak and short-lived, versus (b) the strong association hypothesis: The two are robustly linked, even after a delay. Using a predictive modeling approach, we trained regression models to predict comprehension scores from global eye movement features, using participant-level cross-validation to ensure that the models generalize across participants. We used data from three studies in which readers (Ns = 104, 130, 147) answered multiple-choice comprehension questions similar to 30 min after reading a 6,500-word text, or after reading up to eight 1,000-word texts. The models generated accurate predictions of participants' text comprehension scores (correlations between observed and predicted comprehension: 0.384, 0.362, 0.372,ps < .001), in line with the strong association hypothesis. We found that making more, but shorter fixations, consistently predicted comprehension across all studies. Furthermore, models trained on one study's data could successfully predict comprehension on the others, suggesting generalizability across studies. Collectively, these findings suggest that there is a robust link between eye movements and subsequent comprehension of a long connected text, thereby connecting theories of low-level eye movements with those of higher order text processing during reading.

Sources that contribute to variation in mathematical achievement include both numerical knowledge and general underlying cognitive processing abilities. The current study tested the benefits of tablet-based training games that targeted each of these areas for improving the mathematical knowledge of kindergarten-age children. We hypothesized that playing a number-based game targeting numerical magnitude knowledge would improve children's broader numerical skills. We also hypothesized that the benefits of playing a working memory (WM) game would transfer to children's numerical knowledge given its important underlying role in mathematics achievement. Kindergarteners from diverse backgrounds (n = 148; 52% girls; M-age = 71.87 months) were randomly assigned to either play a number-based game, a WM game, or a control game on a tablet for 10 sessions. Structural equation modeling was used to model children's learning gains in mathematics and WM across time. Overall, our results suggest that playing the number game improved kindergarten children's numerical knowledge at the latent level, and these improvements remained stable as assessed 1 month later. However, children in the WM group did not improve their numerical knowledge compared to children in the control condition. Playing both the number game and WM game improved children's WM at the latent level. Importantly, the WM group continued to improve their WM for at least a month after playing the games. The results demonstrate that computerized games that target both domain-specific and domain-general skills can benefit a broad range of kindergarten-aged children.

A common measure of number word understanding is the give-N task. Traditionally, to receive credit for understanding a number, N, children must understand that N does not apply to other set sizes (e.g. a child who gives three when asked for 'three' but also when asked for 'four' would not be credited with knowing 'three'). However, it is possible that children who correctly provide the set size directly above their knower level but also provide that number for other number words ('N + 1 givers') may be in a partial, transitional knowledge state. In an integrative analysis including 191 preschoolers, subset knowers who correctly gave N + 1 at pretest performed better at posttest than did those who did not correctly give N + 1. This performance was not reflective of 'full' knowledge of N + 1, as N + 1 givers performed worse than traditionally coded knowers of that set size on separate measures of number word understanding within a given timepoint. Results support the idea of graded representations (Munakata, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 309-315, 2001.) in number word development and suggest traditional approaches to coding the give-N task may not completely capture children's knowledge.

This study examines the correlation of physics conceptual inventory pretest scores with post-instruction achievement measures (post-test scores, test averages, and course grades). The correlation for demographic groups in the minority in the physics classes studied (women, underrepresented racial/enthic students, first generation college students, and rural students) were compared with their majority peers. Three conceptual inventories were examined: the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) (N = 2450), the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) (N = 2373) and the CSEM (N1 = 1796, N2 = 2537). While many of the correlations were similar, for some of the demographic groups, the correlations were substantially different. There was little consistency in the differences measured. In most cases where the correlations differed, the correlation for the group in the minority was the smaller. As such, pretest scores may not predict course performance for some minority demographic groups as accurately as they predict outcomes for majority students. The pattern of correlation differences did not appear to be related to the size of the pretest score. If pretest scores are used for instructional decisions that have academic consequences, instructors should be aware of these potential inaccuracies and ensure the pretest used is equally valid for all students.

This work applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and graded Item Response Theory (IRT) to a large sample ( N = 4522) of Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) post-test scores. EFA failed to reproduce the factor structure suggested by the authors of the CLASS and strongly supported the alternate 3-factor model suggested by Douglas et al. Graded IRT allowed an examination of the progression from non-expert-like to expert-like beliefs. This progression was generally uniform with a linear relation between the difficulty of each step in the progression. Some items within the factors identified by Douglas et al. had difficulty and discrimination parameters substantially different from other items in the factor suggesting the subscale is not unidimensional. The expert-like latent ability trait estimated by IRT correlated more strongly with measures of physics performance than measures of general academic performance indicating that expert-like beliefs are not a general property of high performing students.

Previous research indicated that physics instructors receive little training about supporting people with disabilities, physics curricular materials are not designed to support students with disabilities, and STEM professionals hold more negative views about people with disabilities than their peers in other academic disciplines. We argue that if physics mentors do not know about disability and physics careers, then they will be less likely to appropriately mentor students with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss the development of, and present pilot study findings for the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS), which measures practicing physicists' knowledge about disability and beliefs about the viability of physics career for people with a range of abilities. We collected pilot data at 9 meetings and through a physics listserv; overall 208 participants completed the DPCS. We found that practicing physicists have knowledge about hearing, visual, and emotional/mental health impairments (but not other impairments) and believe the viability of physics careers varies by impairment type.

The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation is commonly used to measure the conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics. Several studies have reported a substantial difference in pretest scores between men and women. This study examines the contribution of several prior preparation factors to explain the variance in pretest score and whether these factors explain gender differences in the pretest score. The study examined a large sample (N = 1060) of students taking introductory calculus-based mechanics at the university level. Women outperformed men on most prior preparation and college achievement measures. No significant differences between men and women were found in high school physics taking patterns. Linear regression analysis showed only 23% of the variance in FMCE pretest score could be explained using a linear combination of prior preparation variables. Controlling for these variables failed to explain the gender difference in pretest scores; conversely, the gender difference increased controlling for prior preparation.