The literature indicates that there is a lack of learning outcomes in economics that can be attributed to the reliance on traditional lecture and the failure to adopt innovative instructional techniques. This study sought to investigate the student learning effects of academic controversy, a cooperative learning technique that shows promise in the…

The purpose of this study is to practice peer evaluation and to determine if the result of the evaluation shows similarity with the lecturer evaluation, thus to make assumption about the validity of peer evaluation in higher education. For this purpose, students of "Specific Teaching Methods I" class, which is included in the 3. Class of…

The five studies reported on in this article investigated the effects of testing schemes on end-of-course achievement. Variables were frequency of testing, repeated or non-repeated tests, and single-unit or cumulative tests. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Independent study is at least as effective as traditional teaching methods, according to this report of a three-year project to evaluate self-study modules, called "minicourses," in a new nursing curriculum. (MF)

In research to test the link between children's failure to engage in comparison activity and their poor communication performance, elementary school students were trained to engage in comparison activity to learn whether such training would improve their referential communication accuracy. Two training experiments with third and fourth grade…

Studied the effects of implicit instruction, explicit instruction, and values clarification instruction. All treatment groups reported significantly higher knowledge scores than did the control group, but only the explicit instruction treatment was able to produce any changes in attitudes or behavior. (Author)

Compares the academic achievement of students from two Dutch medical schools, one employing problem-based learning (PBL) and one using non-PBL methods. No systematic differences were found on total test scores. Differences were demonstrated only at the level of individual questions. Results indicate that PBL and non-PBL instructional methods have…

Using matched pairs of geography questions, a new testing method for machine-scored fill-in-the-blank, multiple-digit testing (MDT) questions was compared to the traditional multiple-choice (MC) style. Data were from 118 matched or parallel test items for 4 tests from 764 college students of geography. The new method produced superior results when…