During the winter and spring of 2003, the Survey Research Laboratory conducted a survey of residents of the Ida Wells and Madden Park housing developments on Chicago's near-south side. This article reviews existing research findings on using indigenous interviewers and reports the findings about the benefits and challenges of using residents as…

Using a pretest-posttest comparison-group design, this 16-week study investigated the effects of 2 instructional approaches on the phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and early reading of kindergarten children. The primary goal was to compare a form of contextualized instruction based on an adapted interactive writing program with a…

In this study, the effect of problem-based learning on students' academic achievement and performance skills in a unit on the human excretory system was investigated. Sixty-one 10th grade students, from two full classes instructed by the same biology teacher, were involved in the study. Classes were randomly assigned as either the experimental or…

The study explores students' use of language in the process of making sense of genetics concepts. It aims to analyze primary and secondary discourses, and examine the relationship between social practices and discourses. Sixth-grade students were interviewed before and during four weeks instruction on genetics. General trends were detected…

The written English vocabulary of 72 deaf elementary school students of various proficiency levels in American Sign Language (ASL) was compared with the performance of 60 hearing English-as-a-second-language (ESL) speakers and 61 hearing monolingual speakers of English, all of similar age. Students were asked to retell "The Tortoise and the Hare"…

The professional literature continues to be an essential resource for scholars and practitioners for filtering and highlighting new advances in research and practice. However, the ongoing challenges associated with too much information, inadequate tools for managing information overload, and too little time for professional development demand that…

Earlier work, often referred to as the "hole in the wall" experiments, has shown that groups of children can learn to use public computers on their own. This paper presents the method and results of an experiment conducted to investigate whether such unsupervised group learning in shared public spaces is universal. The experiment was…

Given the rich tapestry of tribal cultures in the United States, it is presumptuous to assume that any evaluator, whether an Alaskan Native or a member of an American Indian tribe (or a non-Indian), can understand the culture of every group. Rather than trying to master multiple cultural specificities, the goal of a competent evaluator, especially…

Classification studies are important for practitioners who need to identify individuals for specialized treatment or intervention. When interventions are irreversible or misclassifications are costly, information about the proficiency of different classification procedures becomes invaluable. This study furnishes information about the relative…

As school systems internationally seek to improve the models of professional development they are providing for their teachers to support them in integrating information and communication technology (ICT) in their teaching practice, growing opportunities emerge to compare and contrast approaches employed in different cultural contexts and to learn…

Although there is a considerable emphasis on inquiry-based, active learning in standards documents, curriculum documents, and textbooks, there exists a great deal of debate regarding the effectiveness of specific curricular and instructional approaches, including kit-based instruction. This study examines the efficacy of science kits in improving…

In foreign language education, new professional demands are made on teachers. Foreign language teaching can no longer be regarded as a mainly linguistic task. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural communicative competence. Internationally, the assumption seems to be that teachers are already moving in the advocated direction and are…

This chapter examines how a particular strategy for analyzing evaluation data, intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses, may underestimate the true effects of interventions. Such underestimation of intervention effects can profoundly influence policies for prevention and treatment of children's mental health problems, which can in turn lead to negative…

This longitudinal study explored the degree to which a required MBA course emphasizing experiential learning positively influenced student retention. Results from subgroup comparisons across multiple time periods suggest that this type of teaching methodology leads to enhanced retention effects. The improved retention is attributed to the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how exposure to classroom instruction affected the use of a computer simulation that was designed to provide students an opportunity to apply material presented in class. The study involved an analysis of a computer-based crisis communication case study designed for a college-level public relations…