As new technologies increase the opportunities for multitasking, the need to understand human capacities for multitasking continues to grow stronger. Is multitasking helping us to be more efficient? This study investigated the multitasking abilities of 168 participants, ages 6-72, by measuring their task accuracy and completion time when they…

Do early childhood education children comprehend photographs as spatial representations and are they able to use them to obtain information about space? Can they identify the location where the shooting was done? Can they use photographs to identify the positions where objects are located? These are the research questions that this article aims to…

This paper reports on the relationship between the subject matter knowledge of two underqualified teachers and their topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK) as they taught genetics at two community secondary schools in Malawi. The study was qualitative and used the multiple case study approach. The sample was purposefully chosen. Data…

This study examined engineering and physical science students' understanding of the electromagnetic induction (EMI) phenomena. It is assumed that significant knowledge of the EMI theory is a basic prerequisite when students have to think about electromagnetic phenomena. To analyse students' conceptions, we have taken into account the fact that…

As part of an ongoing investigation of students' learning in first semester upper-division quantum mechanics, we needed a high-quality conceptual assessment instrument for comparing outcomes of different curricular approaches. The process of developing such a tool started with converting a preliminary version of a 14-item open-ended quantum…

This multiple methods (Denzin, 1978) study investigated two instructional approaches, traditional module and electronic Problem-Based Learning instruction (e-PBL), used within a middle school engineering classroom focused on the variables of engagement, content knowledge, student self-assessment and teacher assessment of problem solving solutions.…

Most research into prospective secondary mathematics teachers' attitudes towards statistics indicates generally positive attitudes but a perception that statistics is difficult to learn. These perceptions of statistics as a difficult subject to learn may impact the approaches of prospective teachers to teaching statistics and in turn their…

The study used a survey design. The instrument was teachers' questionnaire and interview on awareness and readiness. The interview was administered to the different categories of the respondents using a 4-point Likert scale. Two hundred mathematics teachers were randomly selected from 100 schools (public and private) using stratified random…

This article presents an evaluation of a new upper secondary Earth and Environmental Science (EES) course in Western Australia. Twenty-seven EES teachers were interviewed and 243 students were surveyed about the degree of difficulty, relevance and interest of EES topics in the course. The impact of the course on students' views about EES topics…

This article discusses teachers' attitudes towards immigrant students in poor settings and the effect these attitudes have on organization of education on classroom level. It draws on results from two ethnographic studies where some primary school classes in Sweden were followed with participant observation and interviews as main research methods.…

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to assess probation officers knowledge levels of offenders with intellectual disabilities by utilizing a synthesis of subject matter analysis technique and a comprehensive review of literature. This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase was devoted to establishing the knowledge…

In this study the authors investigate whether a whole-class educational blog could facilitate culturally relevant instruction and authentic intellectual work in U.S. history. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed that included student comments posted to an educational blog, classroom observations, and follow-up interviews. Based on the…

Describes knowledge mapping, a tool developed to increase the objectivity and accuracy of task difficulty ratings for job design. Application in a semiconductor manufacturing environment is discussed, including identifying prerequisite knowledge for a given task; establishing training development priorities; defining knowledge levels; identifying…

Sixty elementary students with learning disabilities were interviewed about parallel domains of uncontested and contested knowledge on the topic of space, including questions of morality and questions of empirical law. Students clearly distinguished between uncontested and contested knowledge, suggesting that they are capable of working with…

Current research and learning theory suggest that a hierarchy of proportional reasoning exists that can be tested. Using G. Vergnaud's four complexity variables (structure, content, numerical characteristics, and presentation) and T. E. Kieren's model of rational number knowledge building, an epistemic model of proportional reasoning was…