Recent concerns about a shortage of capacity for statistical and numerical analysis skills among social science students and researchers have prompted a range of initiatives aiming to improve teaching in this area. However, these projects have rarely re-evaluated the content of what is taught to students and have instead focussed primarily on…

Maintaining effective undergraduate academic advising programs that meet the needs of students is an ongoing challenge for universities across the country. Using expectancy violations theory as a lens, this study argues that student satisfaction with advising is linked to alignment between student expectations of the advising process and perceived…

Research methods teaching in psychology is pivotal in preparing students for the transition from student as learner to independent practitioner. We took an action research approach to re-design, implement and evaluate a module guiding students through a programmatic and pragmatic research cycle. These revisions allow students to experience how…

Knowledge of statistical analysis is increasingly important for professionals in modern business. For example, hypothesis testing is one of the critical topics for quality managers and team workers in Six Sigma training programs. Delivering the knowledge of hypothesis testing effectively can be an important step for the incapable learners or…

One thing that higher education has in common with other service providers is that service failures occur. There are times when students are negatively impacted by mistakes made in the classroom. An extensive body of literature has developed in the area of services marketing about what to do when such service failures occur. The current study…

The current study explored the elaborative retrieval hypothesis as an explanation for the testing effect: the tendency for a memory test to enhance retention more than restudying. In particular, the retrieval process during testing may activate elaborative information related to the target response, thereby increasing the chances that activation…

Two experiments investigated the processing and appreciation of double grounding, a form of intentional ambiguity often used in the construction of headlines. For example, in "Russia takes the froth off Carlsberg results," the key element, "takes the froth off," is significant both metaphorically, where it refers to the…

This article explores the configural weighted average (CWA) hypothesis suggesting that extension biases, like conjunction and disjunction errors, occur because people estimate compound probabilities by taking a CWA of the constituent probabilities. The hypothesis suggests a process consistent with well-known cognitive constraints, which…

The item-specific proportion congruent (ISPC) effect refers to the observation that the Stroop effect is larger for words that are presented mostly in congruent colors (e.g., "BLUE" presented 75% of the time in blue) and smaller for words that are presented mostly in a given incongruent color (e.g., "YELLOW" presented 75% of…

Purpose: Self- and peer assessment has proved effective in promoting the development of teamwork and other professional skills in undergraduate students. However, in previous research approximately 30 percent of students reported that its use produced no perceived improvement in their teamwork experience. It was hypothesised that a significant…

Undergraduates studied the definitions of 16 psychology terms, expecting either a multiple-choice (n = 132) or short-answer (n = 122) test. All students then received the same multiple-choice test, requiring them to recognize the definitions as well as novel examples of the terms. Compared to students expecting a multiple-choice test, those…

This study explores the relationship between the structure of an existing social network and the structure of an emergent discussion-board network in an undergraduate university class. Thirty-one students were issued with laptop computers that remained in their possession for the duration of the semester. While using these machines, participants'…

This paper examines several ways in which teaching effectiveness and student learning in an undergraduate Business Statistics course can be enhanced. First, we review some key concepts in Business Statistics that are often challenging to teach and show how using real data sets assist students in developing deeper understanding of the concepts.…

This study investigated beliefs about HIV/AIDS to find out whether this variable could constitute an obstacle to change in attitudes to sex among undergraduate youths in South West Nigeria. A descriptive research design was adopted. A total of 1,420 undergraduate students in four different universities from four states were sampled. A…

The use of computers to deliver course-related materials is rapidly expanding in most universities. Yet the effects of computer vs. printed delivery modes on students' performance and motivation are not yet fully known. We compared the impacts of Web vs. paper to deliver practice quizzes that require information search in lecture notes. Hundred…