Reviews the different types of models that can be used in groundwater modeling. Discusses the flow and contaminant transport models in the saturated zone, flow and contaminant transport in variably saturated flow regime, vapor transport, biotransformation models, multiphase models, optimization algorithms, and potentials pitfalls of using these…

Discusses a case study on discovery learning with a computer simulation environment in the physics domain of collisions. Finds that providing assignments with the simulation improves students' performance on one aspect of an intuitive-knowledge test. Contains 43 references. (Author/WRM)

Describes Wavemaker, a simulation environment developed to graphically reveal the behavior of periodic systems using a series of increasingly sophisticated visual tools. Results indicate that the software is helpful in connecting real to simulated systems. (Author/CCM)

Reports on a study that examined the prior use of simulation on frog dissection in improving students' actual dissection performance and learning of frog anatomy and morphology. Finds that students who performed the simulation before dissection performed significantly better than students who performed dissection before using the simulation or…

The traditional view of the lexical system stipulates word-specific representations and separate pathways for regular and exception words, while an alternative approach views lexical knowledge as developing from general principles applied to mappings among distributed representations of written and spoken words and their meanings. In this study,…

The Pediatric Volitional Questionnaire (PVQ) was used along with the Test of Playfulness (TOP) to assess 16 children with cerebral palsy who took part in a study of virtual reality play intervention. Both observational measures are designed to assess children as they are engaged in occupations in one or more environments. Virtual reality offers an…

Students learn best when they interact with new information on a personal level. It is a challenge for teachers to tightly align student experiences with the standards assessed on high-stakes tests. To achieve this goal in social studies, the author has turned increasingly to simulations where students find such activities engaging, and their…

Cook School District is a Web-based simulation designed to allow teacher candidates an opportunity to explore connections between their actions as teachers and the learning and engagement of simulated students. The simulation provides a setting in which to practice the processes inherent in teacher work sample methodology (TWSM). The outcomes of…

Games have long been used as a tool for teaching important subject matter, from concept building to problem solving. Through fun learning, students may further develop their curiosities and interest in their study. This article addresses the issue of learning biomolecular structures by virtual reality gaming. A bio edutainment solution featuring…

Computer simulations can facilitate the building of models of natural phenomena in research, such as in the molecular life sciences. In order to introduce molecular life science students to the use of computer simulations for model building, a digital case was developed in which students build a model of a pattern formation process in…

This article discusses 5 approaches that secondary researchers might use to obtain robust estimates in structural equation modeling analyses when using data that come from large survey programs. These survey programs usually collect data using complex sampling designs and estimates obtained from conventional analyses that ignore the dependencies…

To deal with nonnormal and heterogeneous data for the one-way fixed effect analysis of variance model, the authors adopted a trimmed means method in conjunction with Hall's invertible transformation into a heteroscedastic test statistic (Alexander-Govern test or Welch test). The results of simulation experiments showed that the proposed technique…

Three experiments investigated the route-angularity effect, which is demonstrated when a greater number of turns along a route increases the estimated length. So far, a route-angularity effect has not been demonstrated in school-age children. Because of the lack of a developmental theory, this finding could only be explained by a minor control of…

A teaching--learning sequence is presented that is designed to help high school pupils gain awareness about the independence of the vertical and horizontal components of free fall motion. The approach we propose is based on the use of experimental activities and computer simulations designed specifically to help pupils reflect on the experiments…

The present study examined if spatial knowledge gained from a virtual environment is affected by the spatial ability of the participant, and whether information can be more efficiently acquired and applied to a physical space when participants are given a display featuring both overhead and first-person visual cues. Three spatial training displays…