An important aspect of MOOCs is the way students interact with video lectures. Instruction provided through video lectures should focus on ways to increase germane cognitive load, which directly contributes to learning. One approach that may lead to an increase of germane load may be to use video lectures with diverse forms of media, including…

In this article we describe models of academic rigor from the student point of view. Drawing on a campus-wide survey, focus groups, and interviews with students, we found that students explained academic rigor in terms of workload, grading standards, level of difficulty, level of interest, and perceived relevance to future goals. These findings…

We explore how the communication concerns of non-native English speakers (NNS) and Americans relate to their perceptions of each other and decisions to interact. NNS identified their concerns in communicating with Americans, the perceived causes of their concerns, and the strategies they would employ to address these concerns. Americans noted…

Instructional design is an important aspect of the learning experience within formal online courses. One way in which online instructional design may benefit students is by increasing their future behavioral intention to use educational materials. This is important because research has revealed that students' use of educational resources is…

Single photon experiments involving a Mach-Zehnder interferometer can illustrate the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, e.g., the wave-particle duality of a single photon, single photon interference, and the probabilistic nature of quantum measurement involving single photons. These experiments explicitly make the connection between the…

The objective of this study was to identify the reasons for shortage of Mathematics teachers at Thai Basic Education level. This research is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. For the purpose of study, survey was conducted with senior high school students, in order to find out their willingness to pursue mathematics in Bachelor of…

Historically, society has associated a visit from a child protection worker with the removal of children. In Canada in the 1960s, Aboriginal children were removed from their communities in alarming numbers and were referred to as the "sixties scoop." This may in part explain the difficulty in recruiting Aboriginal social workers into…

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.…

Technological advances in the last decade have impacted delivery methods of university courses. More and more courses are offered in a variety of formats. While academic rigor is a term often used, its definition is less clear. This mixed-methods study explored graduate student conceptions of rigor in the online learning environment embedded…

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…

An increase in students who enter higher education in Australia following their studies in the vocational education and training (VET) sector has led to heightened national interest in the transition experiences of these students. This paper reports on the experiences of students who, as a result of their VET studies, entered a relatively new,…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and public pressure to prepare students for the twenty-first century has put increasing demands on schools to improve student performance. This action research study examined the efforts of an elementary school principal and her third and fourth grade teachers to improve students' performance in math. The…

This study explored the perceptions of 304 teacher education students regarding how effectively and meaningfully their instructors use the "Microsoft PowerPoint" presentation software program in their teaching and compared graduate and undergraduate students' perceptions to determine the extent to which graduate and undergraduate teacher educators…