Results indicate that while amount of newspaper reading does not covary with knowledge of city affairs, the reasons why people read newspapers matter. If people read to learn about municipal politics, they tend to be taught. If they read for fun, they learn little. Media effects depend on motives of media users. (PD)

Provides a core reference library of 100 basic titles (139 books) which have proved useful to instructional developers and client teacher-designers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The focus is on instructional design and development, but entries on research and on computer applications in instructional contexts are also…

Hypothesized that college students' learning from a videotaped lecture will be enhanced by the instructors' nonverbal expressiveness. Results support a positive effect for affective learning and suggest that nonverbal expressiveness directly influences attitudes toward the lecturer and the videotaped message. (PD)

Presented is an experiment investigating children's awareness of regularities in physical phenomena and their capacity for expressing these regularities. Hypothesized and confirmed is that children can use statements with the form and purpose of a physical law. Cartoons related to Archimedes' principle (and connected gravitation and fluid…

Described is a Piagetian learning cycle based on Monte Carlo modeling of several simple reaction mechanisms. Included are descriptions of learning cycle phases (exploration, invention, and discovery) and four BASIC-PLUS computer programs to be used in the explanation of chemical reacting systems. (Author/DS)

A study conducted with 20 good and 20 poor first-grade readers suggested that the ability to induce grapheme-phoneme relationships was much more strongly related to reading ability than was receptive vocabulary. Good readers appeared to apply a principled solution to a word-learning task, while poor readers used an associative solution. (Author/GT)

Fifteen-year-old John Scott created a 35-page science fiction comic. The authors describe his effort to demonstrate that art teachers should not denigrate such work simply because it derives from popular culture, for it is a valid form of creative expression and one which teaches important artistic processes. (SJL)

A model of learning from instruction proposed that students perceive and cognitively respond to instructional stimuli before engaging learning processes per se. University students were trained to recognize only or to recognize and cognitively respond to teacher skills in lectures. Additional prelecture practice in recognition enhanced learning.…

Four college classrooms were observed for 40 days to determine the interaction of teacher role behaviors, student characteristics, and developmental phases of the class as a work group in disrupting or facilitating the learning process. The study's observational categories are detailed and implications for effective teaching discussed. (SJL)

Described in this article is an inquiry into the ability of schools and educators to improve educational practice by converting research findings as rapidly as possible into improved practice. (Author/EB)

Factors that affect learning are concisely packaged in this article. It is then pointed out how the school principal as an educational leader can influence the improvement of learning. (Editor/RK)

Defines and describes phenomenography as a research methodology, and argues for its utility in examining aspects of higher education. Reviews research in higher education using the phenomenographic approach, outlines cautions in using it, and discusses alternative explanations offered in the debate over phenomenography. Previews a series of…

Considers the role of evolution and natural selection in the functioning of the modern human brain. Natural selection equipped humans with a mental toolbox of intuitive theories about the world which were used to master rocks, tools, plants, animals, and one another. The same toolbox is used today to master the intellectual challenges of modern…

Examines why and how one elementary teacher--a veteran third-grade teacher in Arizona--uses drama in the classroom. Discusses how the teacher uses drama as a means for personal and professional growth, focuses on students achieving an understanding of self and others, and defines the drama curriculum as an "expressive orientation" within…

Focuses on the evolution of research traditions dedicated to the empirical study of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) use for teaching English as a Second Language. (99 references) (CK)