The number of Spanish students in Australia is increasing. This growth coincides with a period of revival in the teaching and learning of pronunciation in the foreign language classroom. However, unlike their peers in the UK and especially in the US, no specific materials are available for Australian students. In order to assist them, the first…

In this review of 64 articles published since the year 2000, a strong association between self-efficacy and student learning outcomes was apparent. Self-efficacy is also related to other factors such as value, self-regulation and metacognition, locus of control, intrinsic motivation, and strategy learning use. The review revealed that university…

This paper reports on a small exploratory study that investigates the place and role of reciprocal learning within a partnership-based home visiting program for mothers experiencing depression. The study is one important example of an increased focus on reciprocal learning within practice that has significant implications for the development of…

A recent special issue of "Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education" (Vol. 35, Issue 3, 2007) championed "robust hope" as fundamental to achieving educational utopias, and yet key features of hope were largely overlooked. Although hope feels good and has utility in some circumstances, in other situations different…

Robertson (2006b) surveyed Australian vocational teachers to propose that the criteria of newness, complexity, compatibility and locus of control are influential in shaping the frequency of online functionality use. The current paper tests and further refines this proposition by comparing the likelihood that online functionalities will be used at…

A study involving 22 Australian Aboriginal students, age about 11 years, and 12 controls found that a thinking skills program, the Cognitive Research Trust Program, can enhance their creative thinking in mainstream classrooms, but did not improve scholastic aptitude, academic achievement, thinking approaches, self-concept as a thinker, or locus of…

The aim of this project is to increase teacher education students' understanding of the learning process by focusing on their own learning experiences. In 1990, 67 preservice teacher education students in 4 classes completed measures of academic locus of control, perceived competencies in self-directed learning, and study processes before and…

A study used the standardized Group Embedded Figures Test to assess field dependence-field independence among groups of vocational education teachers of varied ages and teaching backgrounds. The sample consisted of 170 volunteers who were vocational education teachers and trainers in the process of completing the requirements for either a diploma…