This case study considers students who achieved "borderline" (40-45%) grades in their first assignment on a module, but went on to markedly improve their grades over the course of the module. The students were studying nursing and social work at the UK Open University, and they were all sponsored by employers. Semi-structured telephone…

Individualized learning by distance education is discussed, with examples from Lincoln College, New Zealand. After identifying advantages and disadvantages of this approach for students, five degrees of freedom in learning encompassed by this mode are covered that involve content, method, pace, assessment, and sequence. Freedom of content allows…

Recent political and economic developments in Slovenia, especially its accession to the European Union in 2004, have led to a significant reappraisal of the geography curriculum in higher education, and particularly those elements dealing with the teaching of soils. Physical geography, and especially soils geography, has long been an important…

Part-time students' characteristics and teaching and testing preferences were correlated with performance on a standardized economics exam. Learning modules are described. Methods of pinpointing student weaknesses and predicting students' final results are discussed as they relate to other subjects. (MSE)

The Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAP) was designed to encourage adults to participate in higher education. Students enrolled in SWAP in 1991-92 and former SWAP students in their first year of higher education in 1991-92 were interviewed twice by telephone, near the beginning and toward the end of their SWAP course or first year. (The number…

Efforts of the General College of the University of Minnesota to increase student retention during the 1979-80 academic year are described. The target groups were high-risk students, especially representatives of minority groups from traditionally nonacademic populations. The college mounted a pilot education program (PEP) comprising three…

An end-of-year evaluation of the 1979-80 University of Minnesota's General College (GC) Pilot Education Program (PEP) for academically underprepared minority group students is presented. The results show that compared to other GC students, the PEP students came to the college with weaker academic skills, and had different personal characteristics.…