The 2013 US college/university policy agenda, "Making College Affordable: A Better Agenda for the Middle Class," highlighted the role of developing technologies, institutional curriculum-design processes, and new delivery methods as keys to providing quality, affordable postsecondary education. Competency-based education (CBE) is given…

A study described college student writers as they constructed arguments, creating a picture of school-based argument drawn not from ideal models of arguments as envisioned by educators, but from experiences of students themselves. A three-part framework that synthesizes rhetorical perspectives on argument with a social-cognitive view of the…

This study sought to examine the nature and dimensions of prior knowledge among undergraduates in an economics course at the Open University of the Netherlands (OuN). A total of 22 law and 55 economics students enrolled in two economics courses were given a 154-item domain-specific knowledge test, which was then analyzed independently by three…

After forty-nine years of watching and working in higher education, Arthur Chickering has determined that three R's truly are fundamental to helping students learn. In stark contrast to the traditional set, Chickering's three R's challenge educators to recognize, respect, and respond to wide-ranging individual differences among diverse learners.…

Ways in which the "field experience"--including both job-related activities and life-span developments--of adults affects the teaching of developmental psychology are examined. Psychological differences between traditional (18 to 22-year-olds) and adult students are studied. (Editor/LBH)

Decoding, working memory, and domain-specific prior knowledge were studied as predictors of comprehension for 48 university undergraduate students after rewriting notes, rereading notes, or rereading a text. Working memory was most important for comprehension of text-implicit information, whereas knowledge was relatively more important for…

Reports a study of the influence of prior experiences on traditional and nontraditional preservice teachers' personal constructs of teaching and pedagogical development. Results of anthropological, stimulated recall, and concept map think-aloud interviews revealed many categories of prior experiences that significantly influenced preservice…

Discusses results from a survey of graduates following a module in e-business and e-commerce at the University of Sheffield that suggest differences in prior knowledge and cultural background impact students' acquisition of domain knowledge and intellectual and information research skills. Considers implications for Web-based instruction.…

Investigated the attitudes to, and extent of, self-reported involvement in Internet-supported dishonest academic practices such as plagiarism among United Kingdom undergraduates. Discusses Internet experience, acceptability of cheating, assessment of risk, gender, frequency of Internet use, and maturity of students, and outlines responses that…

Investigated the effects of readers' gender, topic familiarity, enjoyment, and interest on second language reading. University students of Spanish completed a reading passage each day, a written recall comprehension task, and a questionnaire. Findings suggest that in addition to linguistic factors, other variables such as gender, passage content,…

"Advances in Education Research" reprints previously published journal articles reporting on research supported in whole or in part by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). The articles are selected from peer-reviewed/referred journals; the journals used are described briefy at the end of the volume. The articles in…

The ability of 59 college students to access prior knowledge spontaneously in the form of a general procedure and a specific strategy was demonstrated using a training for transfer paradigm. Results are discussed in the context of transfer-appropriate processing and transfer-appropriate procedures models of learning and memory. (SLD)

Reports the design and evaluation of a prototype for learning modules compliant to the SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) standard for use with hypermedia systems in Web-based instruction. Discusses a study of undergraduates that considered relations between individual differences in learner characteristics, including intrinsic…

This paper briefly identifies a number of contemporary pressures for change which condition the way universities will behave and which provide both opportunities and threats for the future; it then goes on to consider the implications for distance education universities. Pressures on universities include such factors as the growth of other…

This ethnographic case study examined the attitudes of two student teachers toward the practice teaching experience, their relationship with classroom teachers and advisors, and their teaching philosophy. Suggests that a strong and collaborative teacher-student teacher relationship is essential for a successful practice teaching experience. (MDM)