Developmental mathematics courses play a critical role in ensuring that students have the foundational mathematical skills necessary to succeed in higher educational mathematics coursework. With the introduction of the corequisite format in recent educational reforms, there has been a growing trend towards transferring developmental mathematics…

Low levels of student success in introductory college math courses are rampant. There are several reasons for low pass rates in these courses, with the most serious issue being lack of concept mastery. To aid students in concept mastery, adaptive learning systems were created. These systems adapt instruction for each student and create an…

Although computer-assisted instruction (CAI) favorably affects academic performance and attitudes toward instruction, most CAI programs target mastery but not fluency. This study used a within-subjects, crossover design to compare the effects of CAI that included fluency training with traditional study (TS) conditions on test performance and…

Three groups of college students operated under different contingencies in the same classroom. The Programmed Achievement (PA) condition required students to show 100 percent mastery on 12 chapter quizzes, at the risk of grade loss. Control students took quizzes with no requirement for mastery, and a group of low achievers tried both methods. The…

This study examined the relative benefits of mastery learning, overlearning, and fluency-building instructions for academic performance and long-term retention. College students enrolled in introductory quantitative methods classes (n = 168) were asked to practice every week with a computerized flash-card program until they attained various…

Students undergoing a mastery-variable time-variable undergraduate educational psychology course were studied in order to determine the effects of level of mastery chosen (by the students for a final grade) on time taken to reach criterion level over five course examinations. When equated for trials to criterion, no such grade aspiration effect…

This book contains 40 papers from an international symposium on improving the quality of higher education teaching and learning. Part 1 contains three papers on using research to improve student learning covering some Canadian projects, the use of research on student learning, and ways to evaluate and improve learning. Part 2 contains 10 papers on…