This study focuses on the effect of using a computer-based competitive learning system called LearnStar, as supplementary instruction in introductory chemistry courses. The outcomes evaluated were of student performance on classroom exams, the cumulative final, overall course grade, overall DFW rate (the percentage of student receiving a D, F, or…

Constant changes in society and the public health domain force public health professionals into new roles and the development of new competencies. Public health professionals will need to be trained to respond to this challenge. The aim of this comparative study among Poland, the UK and the Netherlands is to identify competence needs for Master of…

Trickster tales, with their teachings on how to behave in the world, are a powerful means for transmitting social knowledge and cultural mores to children. In this study we compared two approaches to teaching fourth-grade students to write trickster tales. Although both instructional methods incorporated aspects of the writing process approach,…

No one disputes today the fact that, for centuries, the diversity of traditions and cultures has been one of the major assets of both Europe and Romania, and that during the past decades the principle of tolerance has become the guarantee of a European open society aware of the importance of its cultural diversity. In this 21st century, in Romania…

Accounting educators struggle with ways to incorporate the development of critical thinking and communication skills into the curriculum. Case analysis is one tool for developing these skills. We examine whether students' case analysis scores improve as a result of participation in peer grading and peer review. We find that students improve their…

This case study examined the general question: "What are the best practices for teaching. English language learners how to read?" Furthermore, this study sought to discover specifically: How do students using Houghton Mifflin Reading Program with supplementals and Rigby Reading Program with supplementals compare in terms of academic gains?; What…

The transition from preservice science teacher education programs to the first years of full-time teaching is arguably one of the most critical stages in the professional development of science teachers. This report documents a longitudinal study aimed at enhancing the research base for understanding this critical stage. The research is framed as…

This historic case study addressed the issue of the lack of citizen action toward environmentally responsible behavior. Although there have been studies regarding components of environmental responsible behavior [ERB], there has been little focus on historic models of exemplary figures of ERB. This study examined one of the first conservation…

This study explores educators' reflections on professional childcare practice in different national contexts. The data were collected by showing video clips of classroom activities in Japanese, Dutch and German pre-schools to experienced German and Dutch pre-school teachers. The clips were used to elicit their opinions on playing and learning in…

This work compares the results of three assessment systems used in two Spanish universities (the "Universidad Politecnica de Madrid" and the "Universidad Catolica de Avila"): the traditional system based on final examinations, continuous assessment with periodic tests and a proposed system (specially designed for heterogeneous…

Adolescents are physically inactive and non-Caucasian adolescents achieve the least amount of physical activity. Hence, supporting teachers' efforts to increase their students' physical activity during physical education is important. We examined the influence of a social cognitive theory-based intervention on teachers' efficacy to teach…

Using a low-inference observational instrument, the authors empirically described and compared pedagogical behaviors in bilingual and structured English-immersion programs serving Spanish-speaking English language learners in a large urban school district in Southeast Texas. The two programs included both intervention/control of each type during…

Despite an unprecedented increase in classroom-based support staff, there are confusing messages about their appropriate deployment and a lack of systematic evidence on their impact. This article addresses the deployment and impact on pupil engagement and individual attention of support staff, commonly known as teaching assistants (TAs), in terms…

A comparative study is presented of three types of teaching methods: cooperative, competitive, and individualistic. It is pointed out that while studies related to this topic show that the cooperative method seems to be the most widely used and perceived as the most beneficial for teaching students, competitive and individualistic teaching methods…

Presents some examples, from Japanese and English, in which the syntactic and semantic correspondence seems to be sufficiently established as to demonstrate the efficacy of the rationalist approach, which is defined here as an attempt "to give students the reasons for grammatical phenomena, relating facts about the second language to facts about…