A review of research into teaching and learning in political science education concludes that this literature emphasizes student outcomes and "show and tell" descriptions of pedagogical interventions (Craig 2014). The present study instead aims to open the "black box" of conceptual learning in political science, illustrating…

Misconceptions are the "the old, the bad, and the ugly" prior knowledge, ideas or conceptions that the learners have that hinder their further learning in science. Several types of misconceptions that undergraduate students hold about reaction coordinate diagrams (from here on we use the term "reaction coordinate diagrams" and…

Reasoning skills have been clearly related to achievement in introductory undergraduate biology, a course with a high failure rate that may contribute to dropout from undergraduate STEM majors. Existing measures are focused on the experimental method, such as generating hypotheses, choosing a research method, how to control variables other than…

This paper explores the viability and development of the first edition of the researcher's mathematical card game, Groups, as a learning tool for elementary group theory, a topic in abstract algebra. "Groups" was play-tested by six undergraduate students in late 2016 who provided feedback on "Groups" from both utility-centric…

Thanks to the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, veterans are entering American colleges and universities in numbers not seen since World War II. Very few of today's veterans, however, attend our nation's most selective institutions. Military-connected students constitute about 5% of the total college-going population, but make up only 2% or less of the student…

The purpose of this investigation was to explore changes in undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants' (TAs') content knowledge and beliefs about teaching within the context of an inquiry-based laboratory course. TAs received professional development (PD), which was informed by the TA training literature base and was designed for TAs…

Employers seek college graduates with leadership skills, but studies indicate not all students graduate with leadership ability. Furthermore, an interdisciplinary perspective of leadership implies that leadership learning and ability can be achieved with a variety of methods. This study sought to understand how reading fiction, including comic…

People with acquired brain injury (ABI) present with impairments in working memory and executive functions, and these cognitive deficits contribute to difficulty self-regulating the production of expository writing. Cognitive processes involved in carrying out complex writing tasks include planning, generating text, and reviewing or revising text…

A phenomenological study was used to investigate factors that promoted online course completion among African American male undergraduate students. This investigation was important due to the current problem of academic underachievement in online courses among African American males. Ten males were interviewed with significant statements and…

This dissertation is about the stories of African American male undergraduate students who have experienced success in mathematics. Bandura's (1997) social cognitive theory and Tillman's (2000) culturally sensitive research approach which promotes qualitative methods, recognizes ethnicity, and positions culture as central to the research were…

There is growing interest in teaching K-16 students where food comes from and how it is grown, as evidenced by school gardens, farm-to-school programs, majors related to food systems, student farms on college campuses, and campus sustainable food projects. Many of these programs, however, do not necessarily highlight social inequities embedded in…

The present study investigates the effects of two different vocabulary learning conditions in digital reading environments equipped with electronic textual glossing. The first condition presents the concordance lines of a target lexical item, thereby making learners infer its meaning by reading the referenced sentences. The second condition…

Developing problem solving skills is often accepted as a desirable goal in many educational settings. However, there is little evidence to support that students are better problem solvers after graduating. The students can solve routine problems but they confronted difficulties when adapting their prior knowledge for the solution of new problems.…

This article examines the role of international service-learning (ISL) in facilitating undergraduates' exploration of their conceptions of self (i.e., self-exploration). Conception of self refers to the use of values to define one's role in a social/cultural group or organization and in society, and to determine current actions and future…

Even though science says genetically modified (GM) foods are safe, many consumers remain skeptical of the technology. Additionally, the scientific community has trouble communicating to the public, causing consumers to make uninformed decisions. The Millennial Generation will have more buying power than any other generation before them, and more…