This study compared student workload and perceived value of coursework assigned for a matching set of semester and term general education courses at Brigham Young University. Statistically significant differences in workloads were found between most semester and term courses. While term workloads were slightly lighter in general, both could be…

Informed by the latest research on how people learn, effective teachers address both aspects of the teaching-learning equation--they engage students in the course material by implementing best teaching practices and they prepare students for learning by sharing best learning practices. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of…

This mixed methods classroom research examined if accountability groups in the lower proficiency levels of a university intensive English program would improve students' language acquisition. Students were assigned partners for the study period with whom they completed assignments inside and outside of class, as well as set goals for use of…

Sociologists and instructors who teach about community service share an affinity for understanding and addressing social problems. While many studies have demonstrated the benefits of incorporating community service into sociology courses, we examine the benefits of incorporating sociological content into community service classes. The authors…

This paper reports on an observation of 70 university students' use of their personal social network site (SNS), Facebook, over a 22-week university study period. The study sought to determine the extent that university students use their personal SNSs to support learning by exploring frequencies of academic-related content and topics being…

This paper reported on a study of using blogs as out-of-class assignments for the development of learners' writing competence. There were 36 students of English majors from an intact second language (L2) writing class participating in this study. A mixed method design was employed to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. The results…

WebQuests, or inquiry-oriented activities in which learners interact with Web-based information (Dodge, 1995, 1996, 2007), have recently been gaining popularity in education in general and in language education in particular. While it has the advantage of fostering higher-level thinking through authentic assignments, a WebQuest can be challenging…

Although women account for more than 50% of the college degrees awarded nationally, The College of Idaho has had a challenge retaining female students. There are any number of reasons for women's struggle to persist at the college, but one of the most basic may be a matter of self-efficacy. This mixed methods study used a combination of…

Student success in community-college online courses remains a topic of concern within higher-education research. Online courses offer flexibility and opportunities for students to learn anytime and anywhere. Students who are not prepared for the anytime-anywhere format struggle in online courses. As enrollment in online courses increases, the rate…

Problem Statement: In recent years, researchers on learning have focused on learning with multimodal representation and this research has shown that when learners can interact with an appropriate representation their performance is enhanced. If students have the opportunity to interact consciously with modal representation, learning can be…

The purpose of this study is to explore ways of incorporating web-based concordancers for the purpose of teaching English collocations. A mixed-methods design utilizing a case study strategy was employed to uncover four specific dimensions of corpus use by twenty-four students in two classroom sections of a writing course at a university in…

The purpose of this study was to determine what effects synchronous instruction has on students in an asynchronous online art course. Action research was selected as the research method as it allows the researcher to study his or her own classroom in order to improve their own instruction. Data was collected for a period of one month from five…

With the strong emphasis of social constructivism, many educators are finding new ways to stimulate and enhance social activities within the classroom. One such method is the use of cooperative learning. A cohort of students worked in small teams cooperatively to complete an assignment while using blogs to document and reflect their work.…