Attending university can present a host of challenges for undergraduate students and the mental health of students has increasingly become a concern as students struggle to meet the demands of new academic and social expectations. Despite several studies assessing the effects of being kind on well-being, there remains a dearth of research…

This institutional self-study investigated the use of text-matching software (TMS) to prevent plagiarism by students in a Canadian university that did not have an institutional license for TMS at the time of the study. Assignments from a graduate-level engineering course were analyzed using iThenticate®. During the initial phase of the study,…

International students with low academic English proficiency face challenges with reading their course materials and writing assignments. Their challenges are exacerbated during remote learning, as they remain in their home countries, immersed in their home languages, which may be quite distant from academic English. To investigate the effects of…

As educators at a faculty of education, the authors found that teacher candidates (TCs) invariably purchased new materials whenever they had an assignment requiring some form of construction activity. They were concerned about this learned, consumer behavior; lessons of moderation in using the Earth's resources are important elements of…

A primary goal of university instruction is the students' demonstration of improved, highly developed critical thinking (CT) skills. However, how do faculty encourage CT and its potential concomitant increase in student workload without negatively impacting student perceptions of the course? In this investigation, an advanced biology course is…

This study was based on the hypothesis that students' epistemological beliefs could become more expertlike with a combination of appropriate instructional activities: (i) preclass reading with metacognitive reflection, and (ii) in-class active learning that produces cognitive dissonance. This hypothesis was tested through a five-year study…

Focusing on the effects of three interventions on students' reading and writing of persuasive discourse, a study investigated (1) whether the writing of persuasive discourse can be improved by instruction, and (2) the effect of reading on writing and of writing on reading within the persuasive mode. Subjects, 100 Canadian sixth graders stratified…