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Two studies documented and evaluated parental scaffolding of 3-and 4-year-olds' spatial communication. In Study 1, children gave directions to parents about locations of objects. Three-year-olds gave ambiguous directions more often than 4-year-olds, and parents used directive prompts more often with 3-year-olds than 4-year-olds, Study 2 compared the effectiveness of parental prompts in a controlled experiment. Each time children gave ambiguous directions, they were given either a directive prompt, nondirective prompt, or no prompt. Both age groups benefitted from directive prompts, but 3-year-olds benefitted less than 4-year-olds from nondirective prompts. Discussion focuses on parents' sensitivity to children's scaffolding needs and on developmental differences in children's responses to scaffolding. Recent reformulations of Vygotsky's (1978) contextual approach to cognitive development stress the notion of "guided participation" as a vehicle for cognitive change (Rogoff, 1990).

People prefer to order spatial information in a hierarchy of decreasing size of spatial unit when giving directions for finding objects and in a hierarchy of increasing size of spatial unit when providing descriptions of object locations (Plumert, Carswell, DeVet, & Ihrig, 1995). In five experiments, we examined whether people have a preference for ascending or descending organization when the task does not involve conveying spatial information to others. In Experiments 1-3, people learned the locations of objects in a model house and then verified statements describing those locations. People verified statements faster when spatial units were organized in an ascending (i.e., small to large) than in a descending (i.e., large to small) or random order. In Experiment 4, people first performed a sentence verification task and afterward wrote down directions for finding the objects. People again exhibited a preference for ascending organization in the verification task but exhibited a preference for descending organization when giving directions for finding the same objects. Experiment 5 demonstrated that the ascending advantage was not due to the link between the object and small landmark. Discussion focuses on the role of pragmatics and memory retrieval in preferences for ascending versus descending hierarchical organization.

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Students’ attitudes toward statistics were investigated using a mixed-methods approach including a discovery-oriented qualitative methodology among 684 undergraduate students across business, criminal justice, and psychology majors where at least one course in statistics was required. Students were asked about their attitudes toward statistics and the reasons for their attitudes. Five categories resulted for those with positive and negative attitudes and were separated on the basis of discipline. Approximately 63% of students indicated a positive attitude toward statistics. Business majors were most positive and were more likely to believe statistics would be used in their future career. Multiple methodological approaches have now provided data on the various domains of attitudes toward statistics and those implications are discussed. First published November 2012 at Statistics Education Research Journal: Archives