Book Glossary

ABILITY GROUPING	A method of creating groups of students who are similar in achievement or ability level.



ACADEMIC INTRINSIC MOTIVATION	Motivation to learn characterized by curiosity, persistence, a desire to engage in challenging and novel tasks, and a focus on mastery of knowledge and skills.



ACADEMIC LEARNING TIME	Time students spend engaged in meaningful, appropriate tasks.



ACCELERATION	A method recommended for gifted students in which they move quickly through grades or receive instruction above grade level in one or two subjects.



ACCOMMODATION	A process of adaptation in Piaget's theory that involves modifying one's existing knowledge or creating new concepts when new information cannot fit into one's existing thinking.



ACCOMMODATIONS	Changes in the way standardized tests are administered or scored that do not change what is being measured.



ACCOUNTABILITY	A significant consequence of high-stakes testing, in which teachers and school districts are held responsible or accountable for students' performance.



ACHIEVEMENT GOAL	A purpose for choosing to do a task and the standard that an individual constructs to evaluate performance on the task.



ACRONYM	A form of abbreviation in which a word is formed from the first letter of each word to be remembered. Phrases or sentences formed out of the first letter of each item in a list to be remembered.



ACTION ZONE	An area of the classroom in which teachers interact more frequently with students. In a classroom where desks are arranged in rows, the action zone refers to those students seated in the front and center rows.



ACTIVATION LEVEL	The degree to which a particular piece of information in memory is currently being attended to and mentally processed.



ACTIVE LEARNING	Any form of meaningful learning which involves constructing a rich knowledge-base of inter-related concepts, prior knowledge, and real-life experiences.



ACTIVE LISTENING	Listening in a non-defensive way and responding by clarifying the message rather than criticizing.



ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS (AYP)	An annual measurable achievement goal chosen by each state to indicate movement toward proficiency levels.



ADHD	See Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder.



ADOLESCENT EGOCENTRISM	Difficulty differentiating between one's own thoughts and the thoughts of others.



ADVANCE ORGANIZERS	General information presented before instruction to provide the learner with prior knowledge and a structure in which to integrate new information.



ALGORITHM	A prescribed sequence of steps that, if selected and followed correctly, guarantees a correct solution.



ALPHABETIC PRINCIPLE	The knowledge that printed letters are represented by units of sound.



ALTERNATE CHOICE	Item format that presents a proposition a student must judge and mark as either true or false, right or wrong, yes or no.



AMOTIVATION	A lack of motivation; the least autonomous level of motivation in self-determination theory. See also self-determination.



ANALOGICAL THINKING	Limits the search for solutions to situations that are most similar to the one at hand.



ANALYTIC RUBRIC	Assessment tool used to score separate, individual parts of a product or performance first, then sum the individual scores to obtain a total score.



ANALYTICAL ABILITIES	One of three abilities in Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence which is characterized by skills such as analyzing, evaluating, judging, or comparing and contrasting. See also creative abilities and practical abilities.



ANDROGYNOUS	Having both masculine and feminine characteristics.



ANXIETY	Mental thoughts related to worrying and negative emotions such as nervousness or tension, which can impair academic performance.



ANXIETY DISORDER	A disorder which involves distressingly unpleasant and maladaptive feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and physical reactions.



APPEARANCE-REALITY	An understanding that appearances can be deceiving or false.



ARGUMENT ANALYSIS	Challenging students to critically evaluate reasons in order to discriminate between those that do and do not support a particular conclusion.



ARTICULATION DISORDER	A speech disorder diagnosed when a familiar adult cannot understand a child's speech at age three, or when articulation errors are still evident at age eight.



ASSESSMENT	The process of obtaining information that is used for making decisions about curricula, students, programs, and educational policy. This term is also used to describe the actual tools (tests, papers, projects, etc.) used to gather information.



ASSESSMENT PLAN	Report that specifies the learning goals and types of assessment that will be used during a specific time frame.



ASSIMILATION	A process of adaptation in Piaget's theory that involves fitting new information or experiences into one's existing way of thinking.



ATTAINMENT VALUE	A component of expectancy-value theory referring to the importance of being good at a task.



ATTENTION	The focusing of mental processes on particular environmental stimuli. Attention is defined as a cluster of integrated events and processes that determine which stimuli receive further processing.



ATTENTION-DEFICIT / HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD)	A neurological condition that impairs self-regulation, leading to problems maintaining attention, inhibiting impulsive or inappropriate responses, executive control over planning, monitoring progress, and selection of strategies in working memory.



AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT	Measures important abilities using procedures that simulate the application of those abilities to real-world intellectual problems, roles, or situations.



AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING	High level of control in which rules are enforced, yet emotional connectedness is lacking.



AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING	High levels of control or enforcing rules as well as high levels of emotional connectedness.



AUTISM	A developmental disorder affecting social interaction, communication, and behavior.



AUTOMATIC PROCESSING	Skills that are applied without conscious thought. See also automaticity.



AUTOMATICITY	The ability to respond accurately, quickly, and using few cognitive resources such as attention and strategies while performing a mental or physical skill.



AUTOMATICITY TRAINING	Practice aimed at improving the accuracy and speed of reading or math skills such as word recognition or math fact retrieval.



AUTONOMY	A component of self-determination theory referring to a feeling of having choice and control over one's actions.



BABBLING	Repetitive consonant-vowel combinations produced by infants, such as dadadada.



BACKWARD-REACHING TRANSFER	Deliberately looking for knowledge learned in the past that could be useful in a current situation.



BEHAVIOR SETTING	A stable situation in the environment known to be correlated with specific patterns of behavior (e.g., a basketball game, a church service, a restaurant, etc). Such situations coerce children who enter them to behave in relatively homogeneous ways, regardless of the individual characteristics of the children.



BELIEF PERSEVERANCE	Tendency to hold onto existing ideas or beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence.



BEST WORK PORTFOLIO	A carefully selected combination of materials that showcases examples of a student's best work and serves as final summative assessment.



BETWEEN-CLASS ABILITY GROUPING	A practice typical in high school that involves using test scores or past performance to place students into curriculum tracks in which all their classes are with students of similar abilities.



BLOOM'S TAXONOMY	A categorization of six learning objectives which includes lower-level objectives (remember, understand, apply) and higher-level objectives (analyze, evaluate, create).



CAREER OR EDUCATIONAL INTEREST INVENTORIES	Category of standardized tests that assess individual preferences towards certain types of activities.



CARING ORIENTATION	Moral reasoning that focuses on responding to others' needs in intimate relationships.



CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS	Explanations for why events, such as success or failure, have occurred.



*Cells that fire together, wire together*	Phrase used to describe a pattern of increasing efficiency in the brain in which certain brain cells actually learn to fire in unison.



CENTRAL EXECUTIVE	The part of working memory that is responsible for monitoring and directing attention and other mental resources.



CENTRAL TENDENCY	A score that is typical or representative of the entire group.



CENTRATION	An inability to focus on two dimensions simultaneously.



CEREBRAL CORTEX	Extensive outer layer of gray matter of the two cerebral hemispheres, largely responsible for higher brain functions, including sensation, voluntary muscle movement, thought, reasoning, and memory.



CERTIFICATION	Recognition that an individual has completed certain requirements for a particular profession.



CHAIN MNEMONIC	A method that connects the first item to be memorized to the second, the second with the third, and so forth or an approach that incorporates items to be remembered into a catchy jingle.



CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH	Language directed to infants and children characterized by high pitch, exaggerated intonations, elongated vowels short and simple sentences, and repetition.



CHRONOSYSTEM	Chronological nature of development within the individual as well as the surrounding environment.



CHUNKING	Grouping individual groups of data into meaningful larger units.



CLASS MEETINGS	A format for participatory classroom management in which teachers and students make joint decisions about class rules and consequences, room arrangement, and preferred activities.



CLASS-RUNNING PROCEDURES	Non-academic routines that help the classroom run smoothly.



CLIQUES	Small peer groups of 2-8 people that are interaction-based.



CODE MIXING	Bilingual individuals' use of words or phrases from one language as a substitute in the other language.



COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP	An approach to learning cognitive skills within the context of authentic activities in which novices are guided, participate at a level commensurate with their ability, and gradually take over more responsibility with increasing skill.



COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT (CBM)	Technique that teaches students to regulate their own behavior using a series of instructions that they memorize, internalize, and apply to different school tasks.



COLLECTIVE EFFICACY	Belief of success about a group or social system.



COMMITMENT	Making decisions about areas of one's life such as educational and career goals, family obligations or goals, as well as political and religious beliefs.



COMPETENCY BELIEF	Belief that one has the ability to perform a task or succeed at an activity.



CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE	A form of mental representation that reflects an understanding of declarative or procedural knowledge.



CONCURRENT VALIDITY	Type of criterion-validity evidence that evaluates the relationship between the test score and another criterion assessed at approximately the same time.



CONDUCT DISORDER	Serious behavioral disorder that involves repeatedly and purposely violating rules or laws, the rights of others, or age-appropriate societal norms.



CONFIDENCE INTERVAL	A range in which an individual's true score lies, based on the individual's score and the standard error of measurement for the test.



CONFIRMATION BIAS	Tendency to search for information that confirms our existing ideas and beliefs.



CONGRUENT COMMUNICATION APPROACH	An approach developed by Haim Ginott in which the teacher helps to create a supportive emotional climate for learning by using a variety of positive communication strategies.



CONSENSUAL ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUE	Process in which teachers collect samples of students' creative work and then rate its creativeness.



CONSERVATION	The understanding that quantity or amount remains the same even though appearance changes.



CONSTRUCT VALIDITY	The degree to which an unobservable, intangible quality or characteristic (construct) is measured. Accurately.



CONSTRUCTIVISM	A psychological paradigm that characterizes learning as a process of actively constructing knowledge.



CONTENT VALIDITY	Type of validity evidence that is determined by how accurately test items or questions represent all possible items and questions for assessing a content domain. In a classroom context, an assessment with high content validity accurately represents a content domain and/or reflects what teachers have actually taught.



CONTIGUITY LEARNING	Learning by simple association.



CONTINGENCY CONTRACT	An agreement, preferably written, between the teacher and student, that provides the following information: a) specification of appropriate student behavior; b) specification of inappropriate student behaviors; c) description of consequences for both appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.



CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT	An approach to behavior modification involving the use of consequences that are tied to specific behaviors. See also contingency contract.



CONTINUOUS SCHEDULE	Schedule of reinforcement in which consequences are provided after every single instance of the behavior.



CONTROL	Behavioral aspect of parenting in which parents provide limits and discipline.



CONTROLLABILITY	Dimension of attributions in which the cause of an outcome is considered to be controllable by the individual or uncontrollable.



CONVENTIONAL CONSEQUENCES	Consequences applied in a generic fashion which are intended to serve as a form of punishment that deters future misbehavior.



CONVENTIONAL LEVEL	Kohlberg's second level of moral reasoning that focuses on external authorities, such as the conventions and standards of society, for determining right and wrong.



CONVERGENT THINKING	Reaching one conclusion or right answer.



CONVERGENT VALIDITY	Type of validity evidence that is determined by correlating the test score with another measure of the construct.



COOPERATIVE LEARNING	A method of grouping students together to work collaboratively characterized by five elements positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, interpersonal skills, face-to-face interaction, and group processing.



CORRELATIONAL DESIGNS	Research design that attempts to make connections between two variables



COST	Component of expectancy-value theory referring to the expense of engaging in the activity.



CREATIVE ABILITIES	One of three abilities in Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence which is characterized by the ability to generate novel ideas and take risks in pursuing implementation of ideas. See also analytical abilities and practical abilities.



CREATIVE-PRODUCTIVE GIFTEDNESS	Giftedness that reflects talents in generating creative ideas, problem-solving, or producing create products.



CREATIVITY	A variety of traits, skills, and capacities that lead an individual to think divergently and generate novel ideas or products.



CRITERION-REFERENCED LETTER GRADES	Grades that represent what students have accomplished relative to pre-set criteria or standards.



CRITERION-REFERENCED TESTS	Tests that are used to compare an individual score to a pre-set criterion for a learning objective.



CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY	Type of validity evidence that is demonstrated by establishing a relationship between the test score and some criterion, usually an outcome that is thought to measure the variable of interest.



CRITICAL PERIOD	A prime time for learning. It was previously assumed that if a child did not acquire certain skills by a certain age, the window of opportunity would close and it would later be impossible to develop those skills.



CRITICAL THINKING	The process of evaluating the accuracy and worth of information and lines of reasoning.



CROSS-GRADE GROUPING	A procedure in which students from different grades but similar abilities are placed into homogeneous groups based on their reading or math achievement level, and each group works with different curricular materials and different methods.



CROWDS	Large, reputation-based peer groups.



CUE	Nonverbal event that occurs prior to a behavior.



CULTURAL TEST BIAS HYPOTHESIS	Tests are biased in some way for a categorical group such as gender, ethnicity, race, or socioeconomic status.



CURRICULUM COMPACTING	An approach to streamlining the curricular material for students who are gifted by teaching only content that has not been mastered, allowing for advanced instruction or enrichment activities in the time saved by eliminating already-learned content.



CYBERBULLYING	Bullying via the Internet which can take a number of forms, including misrepresenting one's identity on-line in order to trick someone, spreading lies or rumors, and posting embarrassing pictures.



DAILY LESSON PLANS	Instruction plan for one day that may have various formats depending on grade level and subject area and include many components such as objectives, materials needed, and assessments.



DECAY	A hypothesized weakening over time of information stored in long-term memory, especially if the information is used infrequently or not at all.



DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE	Knowledge related to "what is," to the nature of how things are, were, or will be.



DECODING	The strategy of applying sounds to printed letters in order to identify unfamiliar words; referred to as sounding out.



DEDUCTIVE REASONING	A form of logical thinking that moves from the general to the specific.



DEFICIENCY NEEDS	Lower level needs in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: physiological, safety, belongingness, and self-esteem.



DEFICIT	Performance in a domain like reading or mathematics that is poorer than both same-age peers and younger children, indicating an impairment in which students process information in a qualitatively different way than other individuals.



DEMONSTRATION	A type of performance task in which the student shows he can use his knowledge or skills to complete a well-defined, complex task.



DESCRIPTIVE DESIGNS	Research design that provides basic information about behaviors without making connections between behaviors, events, or conditions.



DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY	Performance in a domain such as reading or mathematics that is poorer than same-age peers but similar to younger students, indicating a slower rate of development.



DEVIATION IQ	A standard score derived from raw scores; it indicates a test-taker's performance relative to all other test-takers having similar characteristics.



DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING (DIF)	A statistical measure of how difficult an item is for one group versus another group.



DIRECT INSTRUCTION	A teaching method based on behaviorist principles which uses teacher control, structured lessons, and extensive practice.



DISABILITY	The inability to perform some behavior, task, or skill.



DISCIPLINE HIERARCHY	List of generic consequences that increase in order of severity.



DISCOVERY LEARNING	An instructional method in which students discover and internalize a concept, rule, or principle by engaging in unstructured exploration of information without explicit guidance from the teacher.



DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY	Type of validity evidence that demonstrates a test score is not correlated to another test score that assesses a different construct.



DISCRIMINATION	1) Treating students differently based on prejudice feelings or biased beliefs about a particular group; 2) learning in classical conditioning that includes differentiating between similar, but different, stimuli.



DISEQUILIBRIUM	A discrepancy between one's existing knowledge and a new experience.



DISPLAY RULES	Socio-cultural rules governing the degree of emotional expression that is appropriate in different situations, and the coping strategies that are considered acceptable.



DISTRACTORS	Incorrect alternatives provided in a multiple choice question.



DIVERGENT THINKING	Ability to "think outside the box" by generating multiple ideas or solutions to a problem.



DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE	Theory proposing that studying disciplines which require logical thinking could improve general mental abilities, facilitating transfer of these abilities to learning of other subjects.



DYSFLUENCY	Articulation problems.



EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY	A discipline that links the science of psychology with educational practice.



EFFICACY EXPECTATIONS	Beliefs that individuals have the necessary knowledge or skills to achieve an outcome.



EFFORTFUL PROCESSING	Information processing which requires conscious effort and attention in order to retain and store data.



EGOCENTRIC	Thinking about the world primarily from one's own physical or cognitive viewpoint.



EGOCENTRIC SPEECH	An example of egocentrism in which children talk from the perspective of their own interests and experiences without regard for the interests and conversational contributions of the listener.



EGOCENTRISM	A focus on the self with little consideration for other people or their perspectives.



ELABORATIVE REHEARSAL	A cognitive process in which learners expand on new information based on what they already know.



EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE	One of thirteen categories of disability specified by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.



EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIVENESS	The ability and degree to which one expresses positive and negative emotions appropriately.



EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE	A term originally coined by Salovey and Mayer to describe the ability to perceive, express, understand, and manage emotions.



EMOTIONAL REGULATION	The ability to cope with emotions such as maintaining positive emotions and avoiding the display of inappropriate emotions by monitoring and modifying emotional reactions.



EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING	The ability to differentiate and interpret one's own emotions and/or the ability to perceive and understand, and respond to the emotions of others.



EMPATHY	The ability to experience and understand the emotions or feelings of someone else.



EMPATHY-BASED GUILT	The feeling of pain and regret for causing distress or pain in another person.



ENCODING	Changing the format of new information as it is being stored in memory.



ENGLISH IMMERSION	A sink-or-swim approach to teaching English-language learners in which students receive all instruction in English in classes with native English-speaking peers.



ENRICHMENT	An approach designed to broaden and deepen the knowledge of students who are gifted while keeping them within their grade level.



ENTITY VIEW OF ABILITY	A pessimistic perception that one's ability is fixed (stable and uncontrollable) leading individuals to believe that their ability cannot change over time and they cannot control their level of ability.



ENVIRONMENTAL COMPETENCE	Awareness of how the physical environment impacts learning and an understanding of how to manipulate the environment to reach behavioral goals.



ENVIRONMENTAL CUES	Stimuli in the environment that suggest appropriate behavior.



EPISODIC BUFFER	A temporary storage system that integrates information from the visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop and long-term memory into a single representation within working memory.



EPISODIC KNOWLEDGE	Long-term memory for information tied to a particular time and place, especially memory of the events in a person's life.



EQUILIBRATION	A process of maintaining a cognitive balance between our existing knowledge and new experiences.



EQUIVALENCE	The extent to which students are required to know and perform tasks of similar (but not identical) complexity and difficulty to earn the same grade.



ETHNIC GROUP	Group of people who share a similar culture or environment.



ETHNIC IDENTITY	Psychological attitudes and behaviors towards one's ethnic and racial group membership.



EVALUATION	An executive process in cognition allowing individuals to appraise the outcomes of the cognitive strategies used; the process of making subjective judgments about a student's performance or product; the subjective interpretation of a measurement or test score.



EXOSYSTEM	Interaction among two or more environments, one of which does not directly include the individual.



EXPANSION	A method of interacting with children in which adults add to-or expand-children's incomplete statements.



EXPECTANCY	A component of expectancy-value theory which involves a student's expectation for success; "can I do this task?" See also value.



EXPERIENCE-DEPENDENT PLASTICITY	The emergence of skills that are unique to particular cultures and social groups.



EXPERIENCE-EXPECTANT PLASTICITY	Involves windows of opportunity that may gradually close (or at least narrow) if the brain identifies the skills involved as unnecessary to the individual.



EXPERIMENT	A form of performance task in which a student plans, conducts, and interprets the results of research.



EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS	Research design that allows cause and effect between study variables to be inferred.



EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE	Long-term memories that involve deliberate or conscious recall.



EXPLORATION	A period of role experimentation and trying new behaviors, including contemplating morals and values.



EXPOSITORY TEACHING	A highly organized presentation of material from general principles to specific examples beginning with the activation of prior knowledge.



EXTENDED RESPONSE ESSAY	Test item that requires students to write essays in which they are free to express their thoughts and ideas, and to organize the information as they see fit. With this format, there is usually no single correct answer; rather correctness ends up being a matter of degree.



EXTERNAL REGULATION	The least autonomous form of extrinsic motivation in self-determination theory in which a person performs behaviors to obtain external rewards. See also self-determination.



EXTINCTION	Strategy used to decrease an inappropriate behavior by no longer providing reinforcement for that behavior, or ceasing to provide the pairing between stimuli and response.



EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION	A motivational orientation in which individuals engage in an activity or behavior to obtain an external outcome such as a reward or praise.



FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTION	A feature of cooperative learning which involves effective help and feedback to improve performance, exchanging resources effectively, challenging each other's reasoning, and motivating each other to achieve goals.



FAILURE-ACCEPTING STUDENTS	Students who accept failure and give up trying to demonstrate their ability because of repeated failures to perform up to their expectations.



FAILURE-AVOIDING STUDENTS	Students who are highly motivated to avoid failure have low motivation to approach success situations and value learning only if it makes them look competent.



FAIRNESS	The degree to which all students have an equal opportunity to learn and demonstrate their knowledge and skill.



FALSE-BELIEFS	Understanding that people can believe one thing, but be wrong.



FAMILY EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS AND PRIVACY ACT	Legislation that protects the privacy of students' academic records by specifying that parents of children under 18 years of age may review the student's school records but parents must provide written permission in order for the school to release information about a student's educational record.



FAR TRANSFER	Application of knowledge to a context that is very different from the learning context.



FEMININITY	Stereotypical female behaviors such as being affectionate, warm, gentle, cheerful, and loyal.



FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME	If a woman drinks alcohol during her pregnancy, her baby can be born with FAS, a lifelong condition that causes physical and mental disabilities. FAS is characterized by abnormal facial features, growth deficiencies, and central nervous system (CNS) problems, as well as problems with learning, memory, attention span, communication, vision, hearing, or a combination of these.



FLOW	A feeling of intense engagement, enjoyment, and challenge in an activity that an individual feels is personally rewarding, causing the individual to feel at one with the task.



FLYNN EFFECT	A phenomenon in which IQ scores have increased over successive generations throughout the world.



FORMAL ASSESSMENT	A pre-planned systematic attempt to discover what students have learned.



FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT	Provides feedback that helps the teacher guide students' learning while it is still in progress.



FORWARD-REACHING TRANSFER	A principle or strategy is so well-learned or deeply understood that it becomes applicable in future learning situations.



FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION	Simple list of all scores for a group.



FUNCTIONAL FIXEDNESS	The inability to use objects or tools in a new way.



GENDER	Social definition including behaviors learned in the environment about being either male (masculine) or female (feminine)



GENDER IDENTITY	Knowledge that one is biologically male or female.



GENDER-CONSTANCY	Knowledge that gender will remain the same regardless of behaviors.



GENDER-LABELING	Being able to label one's self and others as male or female.



GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDE	The approval or disapproval towards societal expectations for each gender.



GENDER-ROLE FLEXIBILITY	The ability to alter social expectations regarding gender of their own and other's behaviors.



GENDER-ROLE IDENTITY	Knowledge that one behaves appropriately according to societal expectations for their gender.



GENDER-STABILITY	Knowledge that gender will not change over time.



GENERALIZATION	Learning can be expanded beyond a specific stimulus to other similar stimuli.



GENERIC RUBRIC	A standard format that is used repeatedly throughout the year to evaluate a set of assignments. A generic rubric contains scoring guidelines that can be applied to many different tasks of similar type.



GIFTEDNESS	An elusive trait characterized by high achievement in one of a variety of domains.



GRADE-EQUIVALENT SCORES	Scores based on the median score for a particular grade-level of the norm group.



GROUP FOCUS	The ability to keep as many students as possible actively engaged in appropriate activities.



GROUP PROCESSING	A feature of cooperative learning which involves reflecting on how well the group is functioning and how to improve it.



GROUP WORK	A structure in which students work in groups but do not necessarily need to work cooperatively.



GROUP-ADMINISTERED IQ TESTS	An approach to IQ testing in which an examiner administers an IQ test to a group of individuals in a paper-and-pencil format.



GROWTH NEEDS	Higher level needs in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: intellectual competence, aesthetic appreciation, and self-actualization.



GROWTH-BASED GRADING	Assigning grades by comparing a student's performance with your perceptions of his capability.



GUIDED DISCOVERY	A variant of discovery learning in which the teacher provides enough guidance to ensure that students discover the rule or principle to be learned.



HEMISPHERE	The right or left symmetrical half of the brain.



HETEROGENEITY	Variation among individuals on an attribute, such as achievement or ability.



HEURISTIC	A general problem-solving strategy that relies on common sense or rule of thumb.



HIGHER-ORDER THINKING	Thinking that involves going well beyond information specifically learned (e.g., analyzing, applying, or evaluating it).



HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHER	Per NCLB, specifies that all teachers must have a bachelor's degree, fulfill all state certification and licensure requirements as well as demonstrate subject matter expertise.



HIGH-ROAD TRANSFER	Applying abstract knowledge learned in one context to a different situation.



HIGH-STAKES TESTS	All tests that have significant consequences for students, teachers, administrators, and schools.



HOLISTIC RUBRIC	Scoring criteria that require the teacher to score the overall process or product as a whole, without judging the component parts separately.



HOLOPHRASTIC SPEECH	Use of single words to express a larger meaning.



HOME-BASED REINFORCEMENTS	System in which students are given rewards (e.g., verbal, tangible, or privileges) and sanctions (e.g., loss of privileges, such as television time, snacks, or later bedtime) at home, based on their behavior at school.



HOMOGENEITY	Little variation among individuals on an attribute, such as achievement or ability.



HOSTILE ATTRIBUTIONAL BIAS	The tendency to interpret another person's intentions as hostile.



HUMANISTIC THEORIES	Theories which emphasize factors intrinsic to the individual, such as needs, choice, self-determination, and self-actualization as sources of motivation.



HYPOTHESIS TESTING	Examination of research data and results to determine what conclusions reasonably can be drawn to support or refute a stated hypotheses.



IDENTIFICATION	A slightly internalized form of regulation in self-determination theory in which individuals identify with the value of an activity and have accepted regulation of the activity as their own. See also self-determination.



IDENTITY ACHIEVED	Adolescents who have explored and made commitments in occupations, academic skills, friendships and values and commit to certain goals and values.



IDENTITY CONSTANCY	Understanding that an object remains qualitatively the same even though its appearance changes.



IDENTITY DIFFUSION	Adolescents who either have not yet began the process of exploration (as you might expect for younger children) or have been through the exploration process but were unable to make commitments to their goals and values.



IDENTITY FORECLOSURE	Adolescents who have parents that typically use an authoritarian style of parenting such as telling their adolescent who they are, what they will become, or where they will attend college are considered foreclosure.



IEP TEAM	A team of individuals responsible for writing and revising a student's IEP. See also Individualized Education Program (IEP).



ILL-DEFINED PROBLEM	A problem in which the desired goal is unclear, the information needed to solve the problem is missing, and/or several possible solutions to the problem exist.



IMAGINARY AUDIENCE	Adolescent's belief that others' thoughts are focused on him or her, just as their own thoughts are focused on themselves.



IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE	Knowledge that we are not conscious of recalling, but influences behavior or thought without our awareness.



INCLUSION	An approach to implementing the Least Restrictive Environment in which students with disabilities, even those with severe disabilities, are integrated within the regular education classroom. See also Least Restrictive Environment and Mainstreaming.



INCREMENTAL VIEW OF ABILITY	An optimistic view of ability in which one believes that ability is improvable (unstable and controllable).



INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP ACCOUNTABILITY	A feature of cooperative learning which involves group goals (group accountability) and personal responsibility for helping other members and contributing to the group goal (individual accountability).



INDIVIDUAL CONSTRUCTIVISM	A form of constructivism in which individuals construct meaning by themselves from their experiences.



INDIVIDUAL INTEREST	Interest in a particular subject or activity that is intrinsic to the individual.



INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PROGRAM (IEP)	A plan for students with disabilities who are eligible for special education, which outlines curricula, educational modifications, and provision of services intended to enhance or improve the student's academic, social, or behavioral skills.



INDIVIDUALLY-ADMINISTERED IQ TEST	An approach to IQ testing in which an examiner tests an examinee one-on-one; the tester presents items orally, and sometimes uses pictures or materials such as blocks, and the examinee either responds orally or by manipulating materials.



INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT ACT (IDEIA)	A 2004 revision of the special educational law originally passed in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) and later revised as the Individuals with Disabilities Act (PL 101-476), which requires states to provide appropriate public education to students with disabilities aged 3 to 21.



INDUCTIVE REASONING	Logical thinking that moves from the use of specific examples to formulate a general principle.



INFORMAL ASSESSMENT	Ongoing, day-to-day techniques such as listening, observing students' interactions, asking questions, and reading journal entries in order to record information for the purpose of providing feedback.



INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY	A theoretical perspective that focuses on the specific ways in which individuals mentally think about and "process" the information they receive.



INNER SPEECH	Internalized speech for regulating one's thoughts and actions.



INQUIRY LEARNING	An instructional activity which involves formulating research questions, collecting, analyzing and evaluating data, and communicating the results.



INSTRUCTIONAL CONSEQUENCES	Consequences that teach students how to correct their behavior and provide examples of how to behave properly.



INSTRUCTIONAL CONVERSATIONS	A method of encouraging elementary school students' interaction with and comprehension of stories during reading lessons based on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.



INTEGRATION	A form of regulation in self-determination theory in which an individual has fully internalized extrinsic regulations and now takes ownership of these values. See also self-determination.



INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY	A disability characterized by significant limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior (formerly called mental retardation).



INTERACTION PROCEDURES	Rules for talking.



INTERFERENCE (PROACTIVE AND RETROACTIVE)	A phenomenon whereby something stored in long-term memory inhibits one's ability to remember something else correctly.



INTERMITTENT SCHEDULE	A schedule of reinforcement in which consequences are provided periodically for the behavior.



INTERNALIZATION	A developmental process; in Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development it occurs when an individual progresses from performing cognitive processes with a more capable person, socially, to performing them independently and mentally; in self-determination theory it occurs when an individual moves from less self-determined to more self-determined.



INTERPERSONAL SKILLS	A feature of cooperative learning which involves skills such as trust, communication, decision-making, leadership, and conflict resolution.



INTERSUBJECTIVITY	Co-construction of knowledge where two individuals who begin a task with different knowledge perspectives come to a shared understanding, each adjusting to the perspective of the other.



INTERVIEWS	Type of measure used in research that includes verbal questions.



INTRINSIC MOTIVATION	A motivational orientation in which individuals engage in an activity or behavior which is rewarding in and of itself.



INTRINSIC VALUE	A component of expectancy-value theory referring to interest in or enjoyment of an activity.



INTROJECTED REGULATION	A form of extrinsic motivation in self-determination theory in which individuals engage in an activity to comply with external pressure. See also self-determination.



INTROSPECTION	Awareness of thoughts.



IQ TESTS	See also Group administered IQ tests and Individually administered IQ tests.



IQ-ACHIEVEMENT DISCREPANCY	A method of diagnosing learning disabilities in which scores on standardized achievement tests in one or more academic subjects are significantly below what would be expected from the individual's IQ.



ITEM ANALYSIS	The process of collecting, summarizing and using information from student responses to make decisions about test items.



ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX	A report of the proportion of the group of test-takers who answered an item correctly.



ITEM DISCRIMINATION INDEX	A description of the extent to which a particular test item is able to differentiate high-scoring from low-scoring students.



JOINT ATTENTION	A method of interacting with children in which adults label and talk about objects on which the child's attention is focused.



JOPLIN PLAN	Most famous cross-grade grouping plan, originating in 1954, in which students were assigned to cross-grade, homogeneous groups based on reading-skill level.



JUDGMENTAL REVIEW PANEL	Panel comprised of members of a minority group that independently rate test item for bias, sometimes followed by a group discussion.



JUSTICE ORIENTATION	Moral reasoning that focuses on the rights of individuals due to their focus on independence and individuality.



KEYWORD METHOD	A mnemonic technique in which an association is made between two ideas by forming a visual image of one or more concrete objects (keywords) that either sound similar to, or symbolically represent, those ideas.



KWL METHOD	Asks students to list their knowledge about a topic and what questions they have before instruction, and list what they learned after instruction.



LAW OF EFFECT	Behaviors that are associated with good consequences are more likely to occur, whereas behaviors that are associated with bad consequences are less likely to occur again.



LEARNING	Change in behavior or knowledge.



LEARNING OBJECTIVE	Specific descriptions of what students will know or be able to do once they have completed the lesson.



LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT (LRE)	A legal requirement to place students with special needs in the regular classroom "to the maximum extent appropriate."



LESSON-RUNNING PROCEDURES	Specific behaviors required in order for teaching and learning to happen.



LICENSURE	Determined by government regulations that provide permission to practice a profession in order to protect the public.



LIVE MODELS	Individuals that are observed directly.



LOCI METHOD	A method in which you imagine a familiar place and pick out particular locations. When you need to remember a list of items, you use the locations as pegs on which to hang items to be remembered.



LOCUS	A dimension of attributions in which the cause of an outcome is considered to be internal or external.



LOCUS OF CONTROL	An individual's belief that outcomes or events are caused by either external factors outside of one's control (external locus) or internal factors (internal locus).



LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES	Consequences that are specific to the misbehavior itself and serve a corrective, rather than a punitive function.



LONG-RANGE PLANS	Instructional plan that determines how much time is to be spent on each unit of the curriculum and what state standards will be met by the end of the school year.



LONG-TERM MEMORY	The component of memory that holds knowledge and skills for a relatively long period of time.



LOW-ROAD TRANSFER	Spontaneous, automatic transfer of highly practiced skills.



MACROSYSTEM	Broader cultural patterns such as beliefs, customs, knowledge and morals.



MAINSTREAMING	An approach to implementing the Least Restrictive Environment in which students with disabilities are placed with non-disabled peers in the general education classroom when appropriate (e.g., for music, gym, art), but remain in special education classrooms for most academic subjects. See also Least Restrictive Environment and Inclusion.



MAINTENANCE REHEARSAL	Repetition of information over and over to keep it "fresh" in working memory.



MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDERS	Mood disorders in which individuals experience at least two weeks of depressed mood or loss of interest, along with at least four additional depressive symptoms as specified in the DSM-IV-TR.



MASCULINITY	Stereotypical male behaviors such as being athletic, aggressive, dominant, self-reliant, and independent.



MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS	A humanistic theory which emphasizes a need for self-actualization which is obtained by first satisfying lower-level deficiency needs and being needs.



MASTERY GOALS	Goals that focus on mastery, improving intellectually, and acquiring new skills and knowledge.



MASTERY LEARNING	An approach in which educational objectives are divided into small units, and students work at their own pace through each unit, progressing to the next unit only once they have achieved mastery on the current one.



MASTERY-APPROACH GOALS	An intrinsic motivation to focus on mastery, improving intellectually, and acquiring new skills and knowledge.



MASTERY-AVOIDANCE GOALS	Motivation to avoid lack of mastery or looking incompetent according to one's own criteria of performance.



MASTERY-ORIENTED	A perspective focusing on mastery-approach goals.



MATCHING EXERCISE	Test format which presents students with directions for matching, a list of premises, and a list of responses. The student's job is to match each premise with one of the responses.



MATTHEW EFFECT	A rich-get-richer-poor-get-poorer phenomenon in which high achieving students increase their achievement at a faster rate than low-achieving students.



MEAN	Measure of central tendency where all scores are summed and the sum is divided by the number of scores in the group (simple average).



MEANINGFUL LEARNING	The process of actively constructing knowledge by selecting relevant information, organizing it, and connecting it to prior knowledge.



MEANS-END ANALYSIS	A heuristic in which the main problem-solving goal is divided into subgoals.



MEASUREMENT	A quantitative or descriptive number (score) assigned to describe the extent to which someone possesses a certain attribute or skill.



MEASUREMENT ERROR	The accumulation of imperfections which are found in all measurements.



MEDIAN	Measure of central tendency that is the middle score in a list of all scores.



MESOSYSTEM	Interaction between two or more microsystems.



METACOGNITION	Thinking about thinking; thinking about one's own and others' knowledge such as skills, memory capabilities, and the ability to monitor learning.



METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE	Knowledge about our own cognitive processes, and our understanding of how to regulate those processes to maximize learning.



METACOGNITIVE REGULATION	The purposeful act of attempting to control one's own cognitions, beliefs, emotions, and values.



METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS	Knowledge about language and how it works.



MICROSYSTEM	Immediate environment surrounding the individual.



MINDFUL ABSTRACTION	A defining feature of high-road transfer in which information that is consciously and actively learned is retrieved and applied to a new situation, guided by one's meta-cognition.



MINORITY GROUP	A group of people with less power in comparison to the majority group.



MISBEHAVIOR	Any student behavior that disrupts the learning environment of the classroom.



MNEMONIC	A special memory aid or trick designed to help students learn and remember a specific piece of information.



MODE	Measure of central tendency that is the most frequently occurring score among the group.



MODEL	Individual who performs a behavior that is being observed and can be imitated.



MONITORING	Checking on how well your plan is working through self-testing and revising or rescheduling cognitive strategies.



MORAL REALISM	Piaget's first stage of moral reasoning which includes viewing right and wrong as being determined by the consequences of behavior given by adult authority figures.



MORAL REASONING	The thoughts or rationale for determining right and wrong.



MORALITY OF COOPERATION	Piaget's second stage of moral reasoning which includes understanding certain situations or under particular circumstances rules can be bent.



MORATORIUM	Adolescents who are actively involved in the exploration process but have not yet made decisions or commitments.



MORPHEMIC INFLECTIONS	Word endings.



MOVEMENT MANAGEMENT	Set of classroom management skills that involve the teacher's ability to keep a lesson moving at an appropriate pace to keep students engaged, to maintain smoothness (logical organization and sequencing) of instruction, and to successfully manage transitions from one activity to the next.



MULTIAGE CLASSROOMS	A procedure where students of varying ages are flexibly grouped within a classroom based on their current achievement, motivation, and interests.



MULTIGRADE CLASSES	An administrative tool in which students from different grades are put into the same class to address declining enrollments or uneven class sizes.



MULTIMODAL INTERVENTIONS	An approach that combines one or more of the following interventions: medication, contingency management, cognitive-behavior modification, and academic interventions.



MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEM	A question format in which students must choose the correct answer from among the list of response alternatives.



MYELIN	A white fatty material, composed chiefly of lipids and lipoproteins, that encloses certain axons and nerve fibers.



NARRATIVE PROGRESS REPORTS	Reports prepared by teachers to provide detailed, written accounts of each student's learning and performance in class.



NEAR TRANSFER	The application of prior knowledge to situations that are similar but not identical to the learning context.



NEGATIVE TRANSFER	Occurs when previous learning hinders learning on new task.



NEGLECTED YOUTH	Individuals who are neither liked nor disliked by peers.



NETWORK THEORY (PROPOSITIONAL NETWORKS)	A theory that describes how information in memory is organized and connected within a network that is not part of conscious awareness.



NEURON	Nerve cell in the brain that sends and receives electrical signals over long distances within the body.



NEUROTRANSMITTER	A chemical substance that transmits nerve impulses across a synapse.



NEUTRAL STIMULI	All events that do not evoke an automatic response.



NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT OF 2001 (NCLB)	Legislation that re-authorized the ESEA act to hold school districts responsible for student learning.



NONGRADED PLANS	Grouping students flexibly into homogeneous groups across grade or age levels. Examples are the Joplin plan and multi-age classrooms.



NORM GROUP	All other test-takers having characteristics similar to the individual taking a test, such as age, grade, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial status, or geographic region.



NORM SAMPLE	A large group of individuals who represent the population of interest on numerous dimensions such as gender, age, race, and SES.



NORM-REFERENCED	An interpretation in which one evaluates the performance of an individual as compared to other similar test-takers.



NORM-REFERENCED LETTER GRADES	Grades that are based on how a student has performed in comparison with other students in the class.



NORM-REFERENCED TESTS	Tests that are used to compare an individual score to the scores of other students from a norm sample.



OBJECT PERMANENCE	Awareness that objects and people continue to exist even when not present.



OBJECTIVE TESTING	Any testing format where there is a single correct answer.



OBJECTIVITY	Degree to which two or more qualified evaluators would agree on what rating or score to assign to a student's performance.



OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING	Learning by observing and imitating others' (models) behaviors.



OBSERVATIONS	Type of measure used in research that includes watching or viewing the behavior of individuals.



OPERATIONS	Physical actions performed mentally.



ORAL PRESENTATION	Interviews, speeches, skits, debates or other dramatizations in which students are required to verbalize their knowledge and use their oral communication skills.



OUTCOME EXPECTATIONS	Beliefs that particular actions lead to particular outcomes in general.



OVERCORRECTION	Behavioral strategy used to make restitution for an inappropriate behavior by having a student perform an appropriate behavior.



OVEREXTENSIONS	Using a word to apply to a range of concepts.



OVERLAPPING	The ability to deal with misbehaviors without interrupting the flow of an ongoing lesson or activity.



OVERLEARNING	The process of continuing practice after students have become accurate at performing a skill.



OVERREGULARIZATIONS	Making an irregular word form regular by applying a rule (adding -ed to break = breaked).



OVERSTRIVERS	Students who are motivated by a need to perform better than others to ensure their success and prove their ability.



OVERT AGGRESSION	Behaviors intended to harm someone physically.



PARALINGUISTIC CUES	Language cues that are typically used to reinforce verbal content (as when a happy event is described in a joyful way). Paralinguistics may include cues such as changes in speaking rate, pitch level, or vocal quality.



PERCEIVED POPULARITY	Having good social skills, but may not be well-liked by peers and may display aggressive behaviors.



PERCENTAGE GRADING SYSTEM	A system of assigning grades based on what percentage of information a student has answered or completed correctly; all percentage grades are averaged to compute a final grade.



PERCENTILE RANK	Type of test score that denotes the percentage of people in the norm sample who scored below or equal to a raw score.



PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT	Any form of assessment that requires students to carry out an activity or develop a product in order to demonstrate skill or knowledge.



PERFORMANCE-APPROACH GOALS	An intrinsic motivation to demonstrate ability and do better than others.



PERFORMANCE-AVOIDANCE GOALS	Motivation to avoid lack of mastery or looking incompetent compared to the performance of peers.



PERFORMANCE-CONTINGENT REWARDS	Rewards that are given for mastery or for a standard of performance, which provide the individual with information about his or her ability.



PQ4R	Instructional strategy used to increase reading comprehension that includes several steps: preview, question, read, reflect, recite, and review.



PRACTICAL ABILITIES	One of three abilities in Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence which is characterized by the ability to apply knowledge and to effectively implement solutions in real-life contexts. See also analytical abilities and creative abilities.



PRACTICALITY	The extent to which the development, administration, and scoring of assessments is economical and efficient.



PRAGMATICS	Knowledge of the purpose of language and how language is used in social interactions.



PRAISE	Positive feedback on an individual's behavior or performance in verbal or written form.



PRAISE-AND-IGNORE	Behavioral strategy used to increase an appropriate behavior by providing reinforcement and decrease inappropriate behavior by ignoring the behavior.



PRECONVENTIONAL LEVEL	Kohlberg's first level of moral reasoning that includes an egocentric, self-interest view of right and wrong, not using the conventions or standards of society.



PREDICTIVE VALIDITY	Type of criterion-validity evidence that uses the test score and another criterion assessed in the future.



PREJUDICE FEELINGS	Rigid and irrational generalizations about a group or category of people.



PREMACK PRINCIPLE	Behavioral strategy used to increase an appropriate behavior by providing another behavior as reinforcement.



PRINCIPLE OF LEAST INTERVENTION	States that a teacher should react in the least intrusive way possible when dealing with misbehavior in the classroom. If the least intrusive strategy does not work, the teacher then moves along a continuum to a more intrusive approach until he/she finds a strategy that is effective.



PROACTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT	A preventive approach that integrates behavioral management methods with effective instruction to facilitate achievement. It focuses on the group dimensions of classroom management rather than the behavior of individual students.



PROBLEM	Any situation in which one is trying to reach some goal and has to find a means to do so.



PROBLEM SOLVING	The means we use to reach a goal in spite of an obstacle or obstacles.



PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING (PBL)	Experiential learning (minds-on, hands-on) organized around the investigation and resolution of messy, real-world problems. See also inquiry learning.



PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE	Knowledge concerning how to perform a certain skill or task.



PROCEDURAL SUBTYPE	A subtype of mathematics disability characterized by frequent use of developmentally immature procedures for solving arithmetic problems and frequent errors in executing mathematical procedures.



PROCEDURES	Specific descriptions of how to accomplish an activity or task in the classroom.



PROCESS PORTFOLIO	Collection of a student's work from different stages that shows the student's progress or achievement over time.



PROJECT	A long-term activity that results in a student product of some kind, such as a model, a functional object, a substantial report, or a collection.



PROMPT	Verbal reminder that accompanies a cue.



PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR	Voluntary behavior intended to benefit others by helping or sharing.



PSYCHOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL TOOLS	Any symbolic system provided by culture, such as signs, language, mnemonics, concepts, activities, or social interactions.



PSYCHOSOCIAL CRISIS	Psychological and social challenge with two developmental outcomes one positive and one negative.



PSYCHOSOCIAL MORATORIUM	A time with few responsibilities and many opportunities for exploration of different roles.



PUNISHMENT	A consequence of a behavior that decreases the occurrence of that behavior.



QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS	Research design that attempts to demonstrate a cause-effect relationship when random assignment is not possible and manipulating the independent.



RACIAL GROUP	Group of people who share common biological traits.



RANDOM SAMPLE	Every person within the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample.



RANGE	Measure of variability that is the difference between the highest and the lowest score in a group of scores.



RAW SCORE	The number of correct answers.



RECALL	A memory task in which one must retrieve information in its entirety from long-term memory.



RECALL TASKS	Tasks that require students to generate or recall the correct answers completely from memory. Short answer and essay are item formats that involve recall of information.



RECASTING	A method of interacting with children in which adults re-produce children's utterances as a semantically similar expression that adds new information.



RECIPROCAL QUESTIONING	A method for encouraging the social negotiation of conflicting perspectives by requiring students to generate questions based on expository material and take turns asking and answering each other's questions.



RECIPROCAL TEACHING	A method of teaching metacognitive strategies to increase reading comprehension that includes several steps; summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.



RECOGNITION TASKS	Memory tasks that ask students to recognize correct information among irrelevant or incorrect statements. Test item formats that involve recognition include alternate choice, multiple choice and matching.



RECONSTRUCTION ERROR	Constructing a logical but incorrect "memory" by using information retrieved from long-term memory plus one's general knowledge and beliefs about the world.



REFLECTIVE PRACTICE	Any technique that allows a learner to develop a conceptual understanding of content.



REGION OF PROXIMAL LEARNING	Proposes that individuals will study items close to being learned, but not yet mastered.



REGROUPING	Placing students of the same grade into homogeneous groups only for reading or mathematics based on their current skill level, and continually changing students' group placement based on re-evaluation of their skills.



REHEARSAL	A cognitive process in which information is repeated over and over as a possible way of learning and remembering it. When it is used to maintain information in working memory, it is called maintenance rehearsal. When it is connected with prior knowledge and expanded upon, it is called elaborative rehearsal.



REINFORCEMENT	A consequence that is given after display of a behavior, which will increase the likelihood that an individual will perform the behavior again.



REINFORCING INCOMPATIBLE BEHAVIORS	Behavioral strategy used to increase appropriate behavior by providing reinforcement and decrease an inappropriate behavior that cannot occur at the same time.



REJECTED YOUTH	Individuals who do not have good social skills, display aggressive behaviors and tend to be less well liked by peers.



RELATEDNESS	A component of self-determination theory referring to the need to feel securely connected to others, which enables individuals to feel safe to explore their environment.



RELATIONAL AGGRESSION	Behaviors specifically intended to damage another person's relationships.



RELIABILITY	The consistency of the test score or results.



REPRIMAND	Behavioral strategy used to decrease an inappropriate behavior by providing undesired verbal criticisms of behavior.



RESPONSE ALTERNATIVES	List of alternatives in a multiple choice item from which students must choose a correct response.



RESPONSE COST	Behavioral strategy used to decrease an inappropriate behavior by taking away something desired.



RESPONSE SET	Tendency to respond to events or situations in the way that is most familiar to us.



RESPONSE-TO-INTERVENTION	A method of diagnosing learning disabilities in which students identified as at risk for learning disabilities are given appropriate instructional interventions. Those who fail to respond to interventions would be considered to have a learning disability.



RESPONSIVENESS	Emotional component of parenting such as affection, acceptance and caring.



RESTRICTED RESPONSE ESSAY	Question format that limits the content of students' answers as well as the form of their responses.



RETRIEVAL CUE	A hint about where to "look" for a piece of information in long-term memory.



RETRIEVAL FAILURE	Failure to pull up a mental record of information that has been previously learned.



REVERSIBILITY	Ability to manipulate one's thinking in two directions.



ROTE MEMORIZATION	Memorizing information without necessarily understanding it.



ROUTINE	A predictable schedule or course of action.



RUBRIC	An assessment tool that provides pre-set criteria for scoring student responses, making grading simpler and more transparent.



RULES	Statements describing a behavior that is necessary to ensure a safe and productive learning environment.



SAMPLE	Smaller set of individuals from the population of interest who are included in the research study.



SATIATION	Behavioral strategy used to decrease an inappropriate behavior by having a student perform the behavior until it is no longer reinforcing.



SCAFFOLDING	Temporary social support provided by an adult or more capable peer for a child to accomplish a task.



SCHEMA THEORY	Individuals use basic structures (schemas) for organizing related information and concepts within long term memory.



SCHEMES	Organized patterns of physical action.



SCHOOLHOUSE GIFTEDNESS	Giftedness that reflects high overall cognitive ability, high achievement in particular subjects, or efficiency in processing information and learning new things.



SECTION 504 OF THE REHABILITATION ACT OF 1973	A federal anti-discrimination law protecting the rights of individuals with mental and physical disabilities.



SECTION 504 PLAN	A curriculum plan for students with disabilities, required by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which outlines the type of education and services needed for the student to function as adequately as non-disabled students. See also Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.



SEDUCTIVE DETAILS	Very interesting parts of a text that convey nonessential information.



SEL (SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING)	A term used to describe a wide variety of programs that are designed to facilitate the development of social and emotional skills such as emotional awareness, differentiating emotions, differentiating the intensity of feelings, emotional regulation, using peer feedback, developing sensitivity to other's emotions, perspective-taking, and conflict resolution skills.



SELF-ACTUALIZATION	The highest level of motivation in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs characterized by a need to satisfy one's full potential.



SELF-AWARENESS	The ability to recognize one's own thoughts and feelings, and to observe them in a way that allows one to understand them and make decisions about how to act on them.



SELF-CONCEPT	A cognitive aspect in which an individual has a perception or description about themselves.



SELF-DETERMINATION	Autonomy, or the feeling of having choice in one's actions rather than being controlled or pressured; also refers to a theory of motivation in which individuals are motivated intrinsically by needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.



SELF-EFFICACY	One's belief about or expectation for success on a particular task.



SELF-ESTEEM	An affective aspect in which an individual evaluates components of him or herself and feels either as good or bad.



SELF-EVALUATION	Determining the quality of the judgment (good or bad) and possibly providing self-imposed consequences.



SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY	A groundless expectation that becomes true simply because it was expected.



SELF-INTERROGATION	Asking questions to gauge whether one's newly learned material has been mastered.



SELF-JUDGMENT	Comparing one's own performance to a predetermined goal or standard.



SELF-MOTIVATION	The ability to generate feelings of enthusiasm, zeal, confidence, and persistence, especially during challenges and setbacks.



SELF-OBSERVATION	Viewing one's own behavior including possibly recording one's own behavior.



SELF-REGULATION	The ability to control one's emotions, cognitions, and behaviors by providing consequences to oneself.



SELF-WORTH	One's overall evaluation of worth as a person; also refers to a theory of motivation in which feelings of competence affect one's self worth and consequently motivation to achieve in school.



SEMANTIC MEMORY SUBTYPE	A subtype of mathematics disability characterized by difficulty in storing arithmetic facts in long-term memory or accessing them, even after extensive drilling.



SEMANTICS	A component of language referring to how meaning is communicated and interpreted.



SEMIOTIC FUNCTIONS	An ability to use signs and symbols to represent an object.



SENSITIVE PERIODS	Periods in development that involve subtle changes in the brain's ability to be shaped by sensory input at a particular stage.



SENSORY MEMORY	A component of memory that holds incoming information in an unanalyzed form for a very brief period of time (probably less than a second for visual input and two or three seconds for auditory input).



SEX	The biological status of male (penis) or female (vagina).



SEXUAL ORIENTATION	Term used to denote homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality.



SHAPING	Behavioral strategy used to increase an appropriate behavior by reinforcing small steps towards the behavior.



SHORT-ANSWER / COMPLETION TASK	Test item format which requires filling in a short response, usually consisting of a word or phrase.



SITUATIONAL INTEREST	Immediate interest in a particular topic that a teacher creates.



SKEWNESS	The symmetry or asymmetry of a frequent distribution.



SLEEPER EFFECT	Negative effects of divorce seem dormant for many years only to arise again during adolescence.



SOCIAL COMPETENCE	The outcomes, skills, and processes involved in successful social interactions.



SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM	A form of constructivism in which individuals construct meaning by interacting with others within a social and cultural context.



SOCIAL ISOLATION (TIME-OUT)	Behavioral strategy used to decrease an inappropriate behavior by removing an individual from a setting that includes reinforcement to a setting in which reinforcement is denied.



SOCIAL REFERENCING	Observation of others in an attempt to use other people's reactions to help us interpret a situation and decide how to respond.



SOCIAL SKILLS	The ability to reason, think through, pick up cues, and make appropriate decisions with respect to interpersonal relationships.



SOCIALIZED SPEECH	Speech used for communicating in a social context with adults.



SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS (SES)	Status of a family household that relies on the education level and occupation of family members rather than their level of income.



SOCIOMETRIC POPULARITY	Being well-liked by peers as well as having good social skills.



SOCIOMORAL DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY	Self-centered, egocentric orientation that is not replaced by the more, typical advanced moral development.



SPECIFIC DETERMINERS	Extraneous clues to the answer of a question.



SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT	A disorder in which language development is significantly below age level because of difficulties in receptive and expressive language, despite normal hearing, average nonverbal intelligence, and an absence of developmental disabilities.



SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITIES	The largest special education category of disability served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.



SPREADING ACTIVATION	Recollection of one piece of information within the network can activate recall of related or linked information.



STABILITY	A dimension of attributions in which the cause of an outcome is considered to be stable (unchangeable) or unstable (changeable).



STANDARD DEVIATION (SD)	The degree of variability in a group of scores or how much the scores deviate, or vary, around the average score.



STANDARD ERROR OF MEASUREMENT (SEM)	Estimated amount of error expected on a given test.



STANDARD SCORES	Scores that are created by converting raw scores, typically using the mean and standard deviation, into scores that more easily and accurately describe score differences as compared to some other types of scores.



STANDARDIZED ACHIEVEMENT TESTS	Tests that assess learning outcomes and skills for broad or domain-specific learning.



STANDARDIZED APTITUDE TESTS	Tests that assess future potential or capacity to learn in general or in a specific domain.



STANDARDIZED TESTS	Tests that are created by numerous experts in the field, focus on broad areas of learning, and have standard procedures and scoring.



STANDING PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR	The norms and expectations associated with a particular setting.



STANINE SCORES	Type of standard score which converts raw scores to a single-digit system from 1 to 9.



STEM	An introductory statement or question that calls for a response (in a multiple choice item).



STEREOTYPE THREAT	An unconscious, automatic activation of prior knowledge about a stereotype which hinders performance on cognitive tasks.



STRATEGY KNOWLEDGE	Knowledge about which strategies are available to aid in learning information and under what conditions or when it is best to use a particular strategy.



STRUCTURED ENGLISH IMMERSION	English-language learners learn subjects in English in classes separate from native-English speakers for typically one year, and teachers use materials and methods designed to accommodate students who are learning the language. Also called sheltered immersion.



STUDENTS AT RISK	A group of students considered to be at risk for not meeting standard achievement levels at school.



STUDY-TIME ALLOCATION	The amount and distribution of studying.



SUBJECTIVE TESTING	Any testing format where the scoring is open to interpretation.



SUCCESS-ORIENTED STUDENTS	Students who are intrinsically motivated, and define success in terms of becoming the best they can be, regardless of the achievements of others.



SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT	A form of assessment that helps the teacher evaluate students' progress, as well as the effectiveness of instructional methods, at the end of a unit or grading period.



SUSTAINING EXPECTATION EFFECT	An effect whereby teachers sometimes fail to notice students' skill improvement, and therefore do not change their group placement, which inadvertently sustains students' achievement at their current level.



SYMBOLIC MODELS	Individuals who are observed indirectly through various forms of the media.



SYNAPSE	A gap between two neurons that allows transmission of messages.



SYNAPTIC PRUNING	Elimination of synapses.



SYNTAX	The rules for combining components of language.



SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION	A technique that combines relaxation training with gradual exposure to an anxiety-provoking stimulus to reduce anxieties and fears.



SYSTEMATIC PHONICS INSTRUCTION	A program that focuses on teaching children to recognize and manipulate phonemes and to then explicitly apply that knowledge to letter-sound correspondences and decoding.



TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS	A test blueprint that is laid out in table format.



TASK ANALYSIS	Identification of the specific knowledge, behaviors, or cognitive processes necessary to master a particular skill.



TASK KNOWLEDGE	Knowledge about the difficulty or ease of a task.



TASK-CONTINGENT REWARDS	Rewards that are given for participating in an activity or for completing an activity without regard to performance level.



TASK-SPECIFIC RUBRIC	Assessment criteria that take a generic framework and modifies it to match specific learning goals of a particular task.



TEACHER EFFICACY	A teacher's belief that he or she has the capabilities to transmit knowledge and manage the classroom in order to teach all students effectively.



TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH	A way of ordering words according to the grammatical rules of one's language.



TEMPERAMENT	A pattern of responding to environmental stimuli and events that emerges early in life, is relatively enduring, and seems to have genetic origins. Temperament includes patterns of activity level, adaptability, persistence, adventurousness, shyness, inhibitedness, irritability, and distractibility.



TERATOGENS	Any foreign substances that can cause abnormalities in a developing fetus.



TEST BIAS	Systemic error in a test score that may or may not be a function of cultural variations.



TEST BLUEPRINT	An assessment planning tool that describes the content the test will cover and the way you expect students to demonstrate their understanding of that content.



TEST FAIRNESS	An ethnical issue of how to use tests appropriately.



TEST SCORE POLLUTION	Occurs when test scores are systematically increased or decreased due to factors unrelated to what the test is intended to measure.



TESTS AND SURVEYS	Type of measure used in research which are typically paper-and-pencil and include a number of questions.



THEORY	Set of ideas used to explain a phenomenon and make prediction about behavior.



THEORY OF IDENTICAL ELEMENTS	A theory proposing that transfer between two learning tasks will occur if the tasks share common elements.



THEORY OF MIND	Early development of children's attempt to understand the mind and mental world.



THEORY OF MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES	A theory of intelligence proposed by Howard Gardner consisting of eight separate but interacting intelligences.



THEORY OF SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE	A theory proposed by Robert Sternberg in which success is defined as the ability to succeed in life and involves finding ways to effectively balance one's analytical, creative, and practical abilities.



THEORY-BASED VALIDITY	Type of validity evidence that demonstrates the test score is consistent with a theoretical aspect of the construct.



THINKING DISPOSITION	A cluster of thinking preferences, attitudes, and intentions, plus a set of capabilities that allow the preferences to become realized in a particular way.



THREE-RING CONCEPTION OF GIFTEDNESS	A theoretical model of giftedness which proposes that giftedness is comprised of three behaviors: above-average ability, high levels of task commitment, and high levels of creativity.



TRANSFER	The application of previously learned knowledge, skills, or strategies to new contexts.



TRANSITIONAL BILINGUAL EDUCATION	A method of bilingual instruction in which students learn subjects in their native language (as well as English-language instruction) while they are acquiring the second language.



T-SCORE	Type of standard score based on the units of standard deviation with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10.



TWO-FACTOR THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE	One of the first theories of intelligence which posited that performance on intelligence tests could be attributed to a general mental ability, g, and abilities in specific domains, s. See also other theories of intelligence: theory of multiple intelligences and theory of successful intelligence.



TWO-WAY BILINGUAL IMMERSION	A method of bilingual instruction in which students who speak English and students who speak a non-English language learn academic subjects in both languages.



UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE	The behavior that automatically occurs due to the unconditioned stimulus.



UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS	The behavior that evokes an automatic response.



UNDEREXTENSIONS	Limiting the use of a word to a subset of objects it refers to.



UNINVOLVED PARENTING	Lacks both control and responsiveness.



UNIT PLANS	Instruction planning for a given time period (usually two to four weeks that often involves a particular theme or set of concepts to be learned.



USE IT OR LOSE IT PRINCIPLE	The idea that practice strengthens neural connections, while infrequent use of certain skills may cause synaptic connections to weaken or degenerate.



UTILITY VALUE	A component of expectancy-value theory referring to the usefulness of a task for meeting short-term and long-term goals.



VALIDITY	The extent to which a test or assessment actually measures what it is intended to measure, so that meaningful interpretations can be derived from the test score.



VALUE	A component of expectancy-value theory referring to reasons for undertaking a task; "do I want to do this task?" See also expectancy.



VARIABILITY	Measure of how widely scores are distributed.



VARIABLES	The events, characteristics, or behaviors of interest in a research study.



VERBAL MEDIATOR	A word or phrase that forms a logical connection or "bridge" between two pieces of information; used as a mnemonic.



VICARIOUS PUNISHMENT	Behaviors are displayed less frequently if a model has been punished for those behaviors.



VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT	Behaviors are displayed more frequently if a model has been reinforced for those behaviors.



VISUAL IMAGERY	The process of forming mental pictures of objects or ideas.



VISUAL PERSPECTIVE-TAKING	Understanding that another person can see something in a different way or from a different view than themselves.



VISUOSPATIAL SKETCHPAD	Part of working memory. A holding system for visual and spatial information.



VISUOSPATIAL SUBTYPE	A subtype of mathematics disability that has not been widely investigated involving difficulties with the spatial representation of numerical information.



VOLUNTEER BIAS	The tendency for those who choose to participant in research studies to be different in someway from others who decline the invitation to participate.



WAIT TIME	The length of time a teacher pauses after posing a question to give students time to think before being called on respond.



WELL-DEFINED PROBLEM	A problem in which a goal is clearly stated, all information needed to solve the problem is available, and only one correct answer exists.



WITHIN-CLASS ABILITY GROUPING	Forming groups of students in a self-contained classroom in which groups are of similar ability.



WITHITNESS	A teacher's ability to remain aware of and responsive to students' behaviors at all times.



WORD RECOGNITION	The act of identifying or recognizing individual words while reading.



WORK-AVOIDANCE GOAL	Motivation to avoid academic work and prefer easy tasks.



WORKING MEMORY	A component of memory that holds and processes a limited amount of information; also known as short-term memory. The duration of information stored in working memory is probably about five to twenty seconds.



WORKING-BACKWARD STRATEGY	A heuristic in which you start with the final goal and think backward to identify the steps that would be needed to reach that goal.



ZERO TRANSFER	Occurs when previous learning has no effect on new task.



ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD)	The difference between what an individual can accomplish independently and what he or she can learn with assistance from more capable individuals.



Z-SCORE	Standard score based on units of standard deviation ranging from –4.0 to +4.0.

Log In
You must be a registered user to view the premium content in this website. If you already have a username and password, enter it below. If your textbook came with a card and this is your first visit to this site, you can use your registration code to register.
Username:
Password:
	Forgot your password?

Site Preferences	(Log out)

		Send mail as:

TA email:
Other email:

"Floating" navigation?
Drawer speed:

Notes		(What is this?)

Add a note
1.	(optional) Enter a note here:
2.	(optional) Select some text on the page (or do this before you open the "Notes" drawer).
3.	Highlighter Color:
4.

Search
Search for:
Search in:

Home > Book Glossary

	Course-wide Content
		Book Glossary Bibliomaker Teachers Resource Center Master Video List

	Instructor Resources
		Instructor's Manual Reflect and Evaluate Q... PowerPoint Presentations PrepCenter CPS by e-Instruction Test Bank EZ Test Sample Syllabi

	Course-wide Content
		Book Glossary Bibliomaker Teachers Resource Center Master Video List