Assurance of learning process plays a major role in higher education and has increased the accountability on the part of instructors at all levels. This paper will discuss the role of assurance processes in teaching and the ways to measure these processes of student learning. The research focus will be to determine if student engagement in problem…

This study determined if trials on a concept learning task could be analyzed, using multiple learning curves, to generate a family of curves which would clarify differences in methods of attaining concepts. (RC)

The effects of level of adjunct question (factual, application) and type of feedback (no feedback, correct answer feedback, self-correction feedback) on learning concepts from prose were examined in a study of 135 volunteer undergraduates at Iowa State University. Adjunct application questions produce better performance on subsequent new…

College students read two passages. Four groups answered questions requiring either a summary, a new example of the concept, a list of critical attributes of the concept, or identification of a new example. The "identify post-question group" showed the greatest accuracy in classifying new examples. (Author/MH)

Using 198 college students, this study investigated the effects on performance of four variables in a concept-learning task. The variables were (1) passive and active learning; (2) contextual specificity and variability; (3) rule-examples sequences; and (4) near and far transfers as critical outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of the…

The concept "trochiac meter" was taught to 180 college Ss by means of eight treatment conditions. The independent variables involved presenting a definition (D) or instances (E) or both combined with attribute definition (A) and/or atrribute prompting (P). Dependent variables were corrected classification and specified classification…

Two ways in which the college teacher accustomed to formal thought and formal teaching can reach students who are more adept at concrete learning are suggested. Guidelines are provided for the first method, which entails the incorporation of activities and materials into the regular lecture or lecture-discussion format of the class. The second,…

Teaching and learning, especially in higher education, appear to consist of complex analytic and synthetic processes which create concepts and relate them to one another. Sixteen model courses from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the arts and humanities were examined to establish some general characteristics of university course…

A course in macro economics, designed to teach economic concepts and to improve student attitudes toward the discipline, is described. It is divided into 10 weeks of core study, using a self-instructional package, and 4 weeks for student options. Objectives of the core study are application of economic concepts to current events, feedback through…

Results are presented from a study that implemented and assessed the effectiveness of a research-based model for training preservice secondary teaching trainees (N=97) in a complex teaching skill: clarity of explanation. Extensive discussion is presented on the study design and implementation. (IAH)

Examines the scientific concept of evaporation. Attempts to show how students develop their understanding through the levels of the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. Shows how designing learning experiences to suit the learners' developmental stages in understanding a concept is paramount to the overall growth of the…

The contributions of psychology, theoretically and experimentally, to university teaching are examined from the perspective of educational epistemology. The most basic theoretical contribution that psychology has made to cognitive learning has been the delineation of a unit of thinking, the concept, which acts as an organizer of experience. The…

A progress report on a research project directed toward facilitating deeper understanding of economic concepts at the university level is presented. The purposes of the project are to explore phenomena conceptualization and to investigate why some students are more successful at a learning task than other students. In the analysis of a…

It is argued that current views of teaching as delivering curriculum underestimate the nature of teaching and imply simplistic views of human learning. The current vogue for teacher appraisal, which stresses a managerial approach, assumes that teaching is relatively easily quantified and measured, and it overlooks the value-laden nature of views…

A teaching model is a distinct set of ordered steps or phases created to achieve certain outcomes. These outcomes are different for different models, although some similarities exist among certain models, thus permitting the formation of model "clusters." These clusters or families include the information processing family, personal family, social…