The growing body of research on the use of vignettes in teacher education courses suggests that vignette-based instruction and assessment tasks may represent a viable alternative to traditional forms of scaffolded instruction and reflective essays following classroom observations, thereby creating a bridge between college and K-12 classrooms for…

The authors investigate whether the choice of college textbook affects students' comprehension of the material. Forty-eight students from educational psychology courses were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (1) unfamiliar passages drawn from the textbook used in the course, or (2) comparable passages selected from a competitor textbook.…

This study assessed the effects of small-group tutoring with and without validated classroom instruction on at-risk students' math problem solving. Stratifying within schools, 119 3rd-grade classes were randomly assigned to conventional or validated problem-solving instruction (Hot Math, schema-broadening instruction). Students identified as at…

College students viewed a short multimedia PowerPoint presentation consisting of 16 narrated slides explaining lightning formation (Experiment 1) or 8 narrated slides explaining how a car's braking system works (Experiment 2). Each slide appeared for approximately 8-10 s and contained a diagram along with 1-2 sentences of narration spoken in a…

Do students learn more deeply from a passage when they attempt to construct their own graphic organizers (i.e., learning by doing) than when graphic organizers are provided (i.e., learning by viewing)? In 3 experiments, learners were tested on retention and transfer after reading a passage with author-provided graphic organizers or when asked to…

This paper aims to investigate students' likes and dislikes of the teaching that they have experienced and its effects on students' perceptions of the learning environment, student learning and academic performance. The study compares a lecture-based setting to a student-activating learning/teaching environment, considering both instructional and…

Students in an introductory educational psychology course used two WebCT communication tools (synchronous chat and asynchronous discussion) to discuss four case studies. In response to the item, "I learned the case studies best when using," 39 students selected synchronous chat and 51 students selected asynchronous discussion. Students who…

Information systems (IS) process modeling using the technique of Data Flow Diagramming (viz., Systems Analysis) can be defined as a complex task for IS designers. This study draws from the domains of educational psychology and organizational behavior in examining the training of novices in conceptual process modeling. Specifically, an experiment…

Changing your Learning Management System (LMS) presents challenges not only to instructional faculty, but also to the students who depend on these systems to completely deliver or support their courses. In assessing the transition for students experiencing an upgrade in the campus LMS, a number of findings have real implications for developing a…