Purpose: The study examined age-related differences in the use of semantic context and in the effect of semantic competition in spoken sentence processing. We used offline (response latency) and online (eye gaze) measures, using the "visual world" eye-tracking paradigm. Method: Thirty younger and 30 older adults heard sentences related…

The essays of this dissertation contribute to the understanding of how public schools respond to competition in educational markets. Evidence is drawn from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the longest-running and largest-scale private school voucher program in the United States. A major justification school choice programs is that they…

This study introduced computerized collaboration scripts with an intergroup competition mechanism to foster students' within-group collaboration in a multi-touch tabletop classroom, investigating whether the scripting effects could be further improved by integrating intergroup competition. As such, this study utilized an experimental design to…

Purpose: Entrepreneurial competence plays a decisive role in entrepreneurship success. To promote the employment of college students and accelerate economic growth through entrepreneurial activities, the Chinese government and universities encourage the use of multiple inputs to boost holistic entrepreneurship education and training. This study…

This study investigates the impact of psychological stimuli on students' continuance intention to use massive open online courses (MOOCs), through the mediation effects of emotions under a stimulus-organism-response framework. Perceived competition, perceived risk, and curiosity are the psychological stimuli. Four emotions (happiness, interest,…

This article explores the effects of charter schools on teachers' working conditions in Bogota (Colombia). By employing a semi-experimental approach involving Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Difference-in-Differences (DID), we find that in the close vicinity (postcode area) of where they are established, charter schools more than double…

Purpose: This study investigates whether crosslinguistic effects on auditory word recognition are modulated by the quality of the auditory signal (clear and noisy). Method: In an online experiment, a group of Spanish--English bilingual listeners performed an auditory lexical decision task, in their second language, English. Words and pseudowords…

Although the acquisition of a novel word is apparently rapid, adult research suggests that integration of novel and existing knowledge (measured by engagement in lexical competition) requires sleep-associated consolidation. We present the first investigation of whether a similar time-course dissociation characterizes word learning across…

This study analyzed teacher evaluation in school, through involving different internal evaluators, in order to determine the extent to which they evaluate teacher performance accurately and objectively. Evaluation survey instruments are used in this study, which are designed based the criteria of existing teacher evaluation system in the context,…

This article presents the results of a small-scale, comparative study on the perceived impact that having students enter Mathematics competitions has on Mathematics teachers in Puerto Rico, Switzerland and the UK and on their classroom practice. The study surveyed a small number of Mathematics teachers in the three countries who teach in both…

Backward blocking (BB) and interference between cues (IbC) are cue competition effects produced by very similar manipulations. In a standard BB design, both effects might occur simultaneously, which implies a potential problem for studying BB. In the present study with humans, the magnitude of both effects was compared using a non-causal scenario…

In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on the performance of Italian secondary schools as measured by maths achievement scores (PISA 2006 dataset). Competition is measured by an indicator of "perceived" competition (generated from an answer provided by the schools' principals). The methodology employed is a propensity…

This study is a meta-analytical study that examines the effectiveness of gamification in learning performance in educational settings (n = 29; year-span = 2011-2019). Specifically, it aimed to investigate (a) whether gamification could improve learning performance, and (b) whether peer interaction (i.e., peer competition and peer collaboration)…

In bilingual language processing, the parallel activation hypothesis suggests that bilinguals activate their two languages simultaneously during language processing. Support for the parallel activation mainly comes from studies of lexical (word-form) processing, with relatively less attention to phonological (sound) processing. According to…

In this article, we discuss the effect of removing the independence assumptions between the residuals in two-level random effect models. We first consider removing the independence between the Level 2 residuals and instead assume that the vector of all residuals at the cluster level follows a general multivariate normal distribution. We…