Project-based learning (PBL) is a learning technology praised for its ability to grow domain-specific and domain-general skills and related knowledge and attitudes. However, consistently designing effective PBL experiences is challenging, primarily due to the lack of instructor support and guidance for designing PBL experiences aligned with…

Students from underrepresented populations--females, working class, and youth from marginalized racial/ethnic groups--are less likely than their middle-class Asian and White male peers to study computer science (CS) in college. The dearth of CS undergraduates from these groups contributes to projected labor force shortages. Sources of the dilemma…

Lack of medication knowledge and skills is detrimental to the safety and welfare of patients. Lack of pharmacology knowledge and skills is detrimental to the safety and welfare of patients. In a southern baccalaureate nursing program, students demonstrated deficiencies in their medication knowledge and skill proficiency. This qualitative study…

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand transfer students' experiences of their transition to a private four-year college in Brooklyn, New York, one with an approximate enrollment of 1100 undergraduates. Of particular focus are the students' experience of a Transfer Seminar required of transfer students in their first semester…

An aspect of an undergraduate psychology course on adult development was the preparation of case records on adults who consented to be studied. Participants (1) developed their abilities to observe and accurately record adult behavior across a variety of ages and contexts; (2) withheld judgments about behavior when evidence was lacking; (3)…

Use of peer instruction and facilitation has surged in undergraduate education at large colleges and universities in recent years. Studies on peer instruction have been directed primarily at student learning gains and affective outcomes among the facilitators. For peer instructors, the relationship between their teaching effectiveness and their…

By analyzing the audio recording and transcription of classroom discourse, this case study focused on the ways in which the instructor used follow-up statements to socialize students into intellectual talk. Four relevant categories of follow-up statements emerged: (a) revoicing, (b) contextualization, (c) parallel elaboration, and (d) assistive…

This quantitative content analysis examines the way social presence was created through original posts and comments in a Facebook group for an undergraduate writing course. The author adapted a well-known coding template and examined how course members--one instructor, two undergraduate teaching assistants and twenty-two students--used language…

Nationally an estimated 41% of traditional students who begin seeking an undergraduate degree do not persist through degree attainment. Guided by Tinto's theory of student departure and the theory of social integration, the purpose of this study was to identify the reasons students withdrew from college prior to degree completion. A qualitative…

Concept inventory tests are one method to evaluate conceptual understanding and identify possible misconceptions. The multiple-choice question format, offering a choice between a correct selection and common misconceptions, can provide an assessment of students' conceptual understanding in various dimensions. Misconceptions of some engineering…

The purpose of this study was to shed light on the mathematics-learning experiences of students who were enrolled in non-credit-bearing remedial mathematics courses at a 4-year university. Non-credit-bearing remedial mathematics courses have a long curricular history in both 2-year and 4-year higher education institutions, but students'…

The purpose of this study was to investigate if teacher candidates could gain knowledge of the principles of Universal Design for Learning by enhancing traditional picture books with Quick Response (QR) codes and to determine if the process of making these enhancements would impact teacher candidates' comfort levels with using technology on both…

To succeed within scientific disciplines, using representations, including those based on words, graphs, equations, and diagrams, is important. Research indicates that the use of discipline specific representations (sometimes referred to as expert generated representations), as well as multi-representational use, is critical for problem solving…

A synchronous blend of online learning and "face-to-face" teaching is becoming a feasible instructional approach in higher education with the advent of technology. Although this learning mode is not new in higher education, little research has been done to contextualise social presence experiences in which effects of interactions were…

The purpose of this paper is to understand student interaction and learning in microblogging-based peer feedback sessions. The researcher examined through a case study how students interacted and provided peer feedback for each other when Twitter was enabled as a backchannel; students were also asked to report how they perceived their experience.…