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Background: Learned helplessness can become a persistent problem that develops in response to a student's lack of confidence and frustration with a certain course of study. Aims:This study examined the effects that a teaching strategy that was designed to trigger intrinsic motivation components had on students' attitudes toward an unpopular scientific subject and students' learned helplessness as a general characteristic. Sample:The participants consisted of 157 female undergraduate students. Method:A teaching strategy that consisted of multi-dimensional intrinsic motivation components was delivered to one neuropsychology class of students, while a second class was taught exactly the same concepts via a traditional lecturing strategy. Two dependent variables were assessed: Attitude toward the neuropsychology course and learned helplessness. The self-rating scales were administered twice: Once at the beginning of the course and once at the end. An analysis of variance ANCOVA was used to compare the results of the two groups of students. Results:The performance of the students in the experimental group was higher than that of students in the control group in terms of course grades. Furthermore, these students exhibited a more positive attitude to neuropsychology than the students in the control group. Learned helplessness decreased in the experimental group, and this was indicative of the fact that the new teaching strategy had a positive effect on motivational levels. Conclusion:A teaching method that incorporates the components of intrinsic motivation can enhance students' performance on a specific course and can improve their attitude toward completing that course.

This study aims to examine the differences in numerosity estimation on a right-to-left number line between second- to fourth-grade students and undergraduate students, together with whether number-line estimation is related to basic arithmetic tasks (addition and subtraction). Hence, 53 Arabic-speaking children and 63 Arabic-speaking adults performed a paper-based number-line estimation task and also an arithmetic task. Number-line estimation was represented either by the percentage of absolute errors in positing the quantities on the line, by the accuracy, or by the r score for linearity of representation. The results show that, although children's addition (but not subtraction) performance resembles that of adults, the correlations vary between number line and arithmetic scores. Addition scores are positively correlated with error percentages in the children's number-line tasks, while subtraction is negatively correlated with adults' error percentages. These differences are assumed to be attributed to various uses of recall and procedural strategies.

This study aimed to examine whether instructing readers to judge text information can impair or

The present study investigated the differences between early and late-acquired words from a second language in terms of the method of recall, speed and accuracy. This involved comparing the performance of 24 native Arabic participants on two different recall methods: picture naming vs. word definition. Each participant attended two sessions, with a 24-hour interval: a learning session, in which they learned new words, and a retrieval session, in which they performed the picture-naming and word-definition tasks while their ERP signals were recorded. The main results showed a significant main effect of age of acquisition on both accuracy and reaction time. Additionally, the N400 ERP component showed a significant interaction between age of acquisition and method of recall in the N400 values recorded in the left frontal area. Together, these findings indicate that both accuracy and reaction time measures can detect differences between early and late-acquired words, recalled through either a picture-naming or word-definition task.