Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo Recent documents in Jose A. Montelongo en-us Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:28:56 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo/3 http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo/3 Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:39:51 PST Cognates are words that are orthographically, semantically, and syntactically similar in two languages. There are over 20,000 Spanish-English cognates in the Spanish and English languages. Empirical research has shown that cognates facilitate vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension for language learners when compared to noncognate words.In this study, transparency ratings for over two thousand nouns and adjectives drawn from the Juilland and Chang-Rodríguez' Spanish Word Frequency Dictionary were collected. The purpose for collecting the ratings was to provide researchers with calibrated materials to study the effects of cognate words on learning. José A. Montelongo http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo/1 http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo/1 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:22:43 PDT Information literacy modules produced by academic libraries to facilitate the research process typically use the criteria of relevance, timeliness, reliability, coverage and accuracy to assess the various information resources undergraduate students use to write research reports. These same criteria are applied to the wide spectrum of research sources that may range from popular magazines to research journal articles.In the field of Cognitive Social Psychology, many research questions necessitate the use of psycholinguistic stimuli (word lists, paired-associates, sentences, stories, etc.) as their treatments. This paper investigates the ability of information literacy modules based on the standards set forth by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to assist students in evaluating empirical studies investigating social cognitive behavior.A study of social balance schemas was deconstructed and analyzed. Using the evaluation module based on ACRL standards, this study was evaluated as relevant, reliable, authoritative, and accurate. Similarly positive assessments of the study have been reached by experts in the field of social cognitive psychology. However, the evaluation of the study using questions grounded in experimental methodology and a basic understanding of psychological theory and statistical methods proved to be contradictory. A new set of analytical questions for evaluating research studies using psycholinguistic materials was generated from the errors in the experimental study. Jose A. Montelongo Articles http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo/2 http://works.bepress.com/jmontelo/2 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:22:26 PDT Marshall (1995) provided a classification scheme for arithmetic word problems. The most frequent types of word problems are the change, group, compare, restate, and vary situations. Change situations tell a story in which there is a change in a measurable quantity of a particular thing. Group word problems ask the solver to use combine members of the same classification before performing a mathematical calculation upon these. Compare situations require a student to complete mathematical calculations upon two or more things and to contrast their quantities for a conclusion. Restate word problems include both a relational statement between two or more things and a numerical value for expressing the relational statement in measurable terms. Vary situations are those where the relationship between two things is generalizable across other values of these things.The basic premise of this article is that educators in the middle and upper elementary grades can use a modified version of the sentence completion task (fill-in-the blanks) to familiarize students with the various structures of word problems. By embedding the sentences comprising a word problem among unrelated sentences, teachers can challenge their students to a) find the sentences pertaining to the word problem; b) order these related sentences into a logical order with or without the aid of a graphic organizer; and c) solve the problem. With frequent exposure to this activity, students may learn the various word problem structures. Jose A. Montelongo Articles