In response to the lecture format coming under "attack" and being replaced by online materials and smaller tutorials, this paper attempts to offer not only a defence but also to assert that the potential value of the lecture is difficult to replicate through other learning formats. Some of the criticisms against lectures will be…

This study used an interactive dynamic simulation of action potential to explore social practices of learning among first year undergraduate biology students. It aimed to create a learning environment that fosters knowledge building discourse through working with multiple concept-specific representations. Three hundred and eighty-nine students and…

The purpose of our research was to examine the influence of an online protocol on asynchronous discussions. A mixed-methods study compared two online graduate classes: one that used a protocol and one that did not use a protocol for the same discussion about a complex reading. Analysis of the data revealed that the online protocol more evenly…

The outcome of university ranking is of much interest and concern to the many stakeholders, including university's sponsors, administrators, staff, current and prospective students, and the public. The results of rankings presented in the form of league tables, analogous to football league tables, attract more attention than do the processes by…

This paper discusses Web site usability issues. Specifically, it assumes that the usability of a Web site depends more on the perception of the user than on the objectively assessable usability criteria of the Web site. Two pilot studies, based on theoretical notions of uses and gratifications theory and similar theories, are presented. In the…

Describes a study which analyzed think-aloud protocols of four expert and four novice instructional designers working on a design problem in physics instruction. Differences between novices and experts in problem interpretation, problem analysis, problem representation, solution generation, the solution, internal resources, external resources, and…

Predictors of novice learning in simulation environments were investigated in the domain of statistics. The first objective was to clarify the relation between intellectual ability and working method (e.g., orientation and systematical orderliness), and to determine the effects on learning of working method, independently of intellectual ability.…

This protocol study: (1) tested the instructional use of a model of the decision processes involved in revising after feedback; (2) examined whether feedback specifying a text problem was a stronger cue to revision than feedback summarizing the point of a paragraph or predicting forthcoming text; and (3) compared the quality of texts revised after…

A study examined the ways in which college readers interact with literary texts. The method of interviews and think-along protocols, in which a text was read aloud by the subject while he simultaneously verbalized his thoughts, was used to compare the reading processes of eight college freshman to those of eight masters students in literature who…

Fourteen high-intelligence and 13 low-intelligence first-year college students worked in a structured or unstructured simulation environment to learn correlational principles. Thinking-aloud protocols indicate that high-intelligence subjects exhibit a better working method than do low-intelligence subjects, and that working method is a strong…

Compares some of the writing behaviors present in the think-aloud protocols of three male Spanish university students while writing in Catalan, their native language, and in Spanish and English. Analysis of the subjects' composing behaviors based on think-aloud protocols shows that their planning and other strategies are consistent across the…

In four experiments studying the think-aloud method, two first-year and two fifth-year students of translation were asked to produce a written translation from English into Finnish. This paper discusses the differences in how the two levels of students used various sorts of reference material. The fifth-year students proved to be very skillful and…

This study examined ways in which two independent variables, peer collaboration and the use of a specific tool (the TAPS interface), work together and individually to shape students' problem-solving processes. More specifically, the researchers were interested in determining how collaboration and TAPS use cause metacognitive processes to differ…

Peer oral protocols and group oral protocols were assessed for their use in improving certain analytic skills of undergraduate college students at a liberal arts college in Alabama. In association with the study, the theoretical and experimental literature on the use of peer and group educational interventions is outlined briefly. Subjects were…

An experiment compared group oral protocols of 37 native English-speaking subjects enrolled in a fourth-semester college French course making grammaticality judgments in English and French. Results indicate the subjects do not necessarily use the same strategies in rendering grammaticality judgments in first and second languages, casting doubt on…