Trajectories of Infants’ Biobehavioral Development: Timing and Rate of A‐Not‐B Performance Gains and EEG Maturation

This study examined how timing (i.e., relative maturity) and rate (i.e., how quickly infants attain proficiency) of A‐not‐B performance were related to changes in brain activity from age 6 to 12 months. A‐not‐B performance and resting EEG (electroencephalography) were measured monthly from age 6 to 12 months in 28 infants and were modeled using logistic and linear growth curve models. Infants with faster performance rates reached performance milestones earlier. Infants with faster rates of increase in A‐not‐B performance had lower occipital power at 6 months and greater linear increases in occipital power. The results underscore the importance of considering nonlinear change processes for studying infants’ cognitive development as well as how these changes are related to trajectories of EEG power.     

The story of ESM

This paper looks at the origins of the international journal Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM) in 1968 and traces its later development as it responded to changes in mathematics education. The paper first examines, in chronological order, the contributions of its editors in defining its spirit, policy and procedures, as they directed its growth and its transformation into a leading journal of research in mathematics education. The paper then presents a statistical profile of ESM articles by content area, educational issue, level of schooling and research method, and goes on to look more closely at the special issues of ESM, each dedicated to a single topic, and how they reflect the changing concerns of mathematics educators. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

High School Students' Critical Evaluation of Scientific Resources on the World Wide Web

This research explores a new web-based curriculum idea, that of having students write and publish critical web reviews of scientific resources as a means of both practicing critical evaluation of web resources, and of making an authentic value-added contribution to the web. This paper presents content analyses of selected sections of 63 web reviews published by eleventh grade students in a project-based science class. Two aspects of critical evaluation are focused upon: summarization of content and evaluation of credibility. Content analyses show that student summaries were usually accurate, but had room for improvement especially in areas of comprehensiveness and level of detail. An ideal model of a content review is developed from analysis of a second set of reviews. When asked to evaluate credibility, students struggled to identify scientific evidence of claims in web resources, but analysis of web documents shows that this is often because such evidence is missing. Students could accurately determine the publishing source of web documents, but challenges arose in identifying potential biases. Recommendations for future iterations of this curriculum idea are presented throughout. A companion paper that will appear in this journal will examine how student reviews serve the function of social filtering on the web.