No abstract

Many studies have explored the effects of single-word contexts on visual word recognition, and several models have been proposed to account for the results obtained. However, relatively little is known about the effects of sentence contexts. In the experiment reported, the contexts consisted of sentences with the final word deleted, and subjects made word-nonword (lexical) decisions on target strings of letters. Norms were collected to determine the most common completion for each sentence frame. The experiment yielded three main findings: (1) Lexical decisions were fastest for words that were the most common completions; (2) among words not given as completions in the norming procedure, decisions were faster for words related to the most common completions than for words unrelated to the most common completions; (3) also among words that were not produced as completions, decisions were faster for words that formed acceptable completions than for words that did not. These relatedness and sentenceacceptability effects were independent, so that the relatedness effect held even when the target words formed anomalous sentence completions. In order to account for these results, a model combining two types of processes is required. In the model described, schematic knowledge (Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977) operates upon a semantic network to activate particular nodes, and this activation spreads to related concepts as in the Collins and Loftus (1975) model.

Student enrollment in K-12 online learning programs showed a tenfold expansion in the years between 2002 and 2005. Despite increased implementation to fulfill critical local needs, there is very little evidence-based research available to inform education leaders' decisions relating to these initiatives. To address the important question of whether online learning can be as effective as traditional face-to-face learning, this research presents the findings from a quasi-experimental design implemented to examine the effect of the Louisiana Algebra I Online initiative on student outcomes. The findings presented suggest that the Louisiana Algebra I Online model is a viable online model for providing effective Algebra I instruction.

The study investigated whether online professional development courses with different levels of support have different impacts on teacher outcomes. Variations of an online course for middle school algebra teachers were created for four experimental conditions. One was a highly supported condition, with a math education instructor, an online facilitator, and asynchronous peer interactions among participants available as participants worked through the course together. Another was a self-paced condition, in which none of the supports were available. The other two conditions provided intermediate levels of support. All conditions showed significant impact on teachers' mathematical understanding, pedagogical beliefs, and instructional practices. Surprisingly, the positive outcomes were comparable across all four conditions. Further research is needed to determine whether this finding is limited to self-selected teachers, the specifics of this online course, or other factors that limit generalizability. (