Learning outcomes assessment has been widely used by higher education institutions both nationally and internationally. One of its popular uses is to document learning gains of students. Prior studies have recognized the potential imbalance between freshmen and seniors in terms of their background characteristics and their prior academic…

Instructional technologies can be effective tools to foster student engagement, but university faculty may be reluctant to integrate innovative and evidence-based modern learning technologies into instruction. Based on Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory, this quantitative, nonexperimental, one-shot cross-sectional survey determined what…

This study examined adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by agricultural science and extension teachers in Abuja, Nigeria. Specifically, the objectives are to: identify the background and demographic characteristics of agricultural science and extension teachers in the study area; examine the factors influencing adoption…

Existing research shows that higher cognitive skills, such as literacy and numeracy, are associated with greater labour force participation and higher earnings, as well as a positive relationship with self-reported health status. However, this research has not focused specifically on the Aboriginal population in Canada. This article examines the…

This dissertation studies the effects of foreign presence on the performance of domestic institutions and economic agents. We identify three types of foreign presence: international students, inward foreign investment, and exporting activities. The first chapter investigates the impacts of international students on the graduation performance of…

Magnet schools are one of the largest sectors of choice schools in the United States. In this study, we explored the heterogeneity in magnet-school effects on student achievement by examining 24 magnet schools, funded under the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP), in 5 school districts across 4 states. The magnet effects were synthesized…

Researchers and teachers often recommend motivating exercises and use of mathematics or statistics software for the teaching of basic courses in probability and statistics. Our courses are given to large groups of engineering students at Lund Institute of Technology. We found that the mere existence of real-life data and technology in a course…

Guided by the interpersonal theory of suicide, this study examines the associations between gun carrying, bullying, and suicidal behaviors among high school students. Arizona Youth Risk Behavior Surveys were completed by 2,677 students in 2011; 9.0% reported suicide attempt in the past year, 5.5% carried a gun in the past 30 days, 8.5% were…

Understanding complex systems requires reasoning about causal relationships that behave or appear to behave probabilistically. Features such as distributed agency, large spatial scales, and time delays obscure co-variation relationships and complex interactions can result in non-deterministic relationships between causes and effects that are best…

Community college transfer students often experience "transfer shock" at receiving four-year institutions, which includes a variety of academic, social, and institutional challenges associated with the first-year transfer experience. Research has demonstrated that first-year program interventions can facilitate the transition of…

Background: Around 10% of adolescent students under 18 years have current asthma. Asthmatic adolescents smoke as much or more than non-asthmatic adolescents. We explored the association between exposure to mass media and social networks' influence with asthmatic student smoking, and variations of these exposures by sex. Methods: This study…

Gauging the effectiveness of specific teaching strategies remains a major topic of interest in science education. Inquiry teaching among others has been supported by extensive research and recommended by the National Science Education Standards. However, most of the empirical evidence in support was collected in research settings rather than in…

Recent empirical and theoretical work has depicted a close relationship between visual attention and visual working memory. For example, rehearsal in spatial working memory depends on spatial attention, whereas adding a secondary spatial working memory task impairs attentional deployment in visual search. These findings have led to the proposal…

Postdoctoral programmes have recently become an important step leading from doctoral education to permanent academic careers in the social sciences. This paper investigates the effects of a large and structured postdoctoral programme in the social sciences on a number of academic and non-academic outcomes of fellows. Propensity score matching is…

The importance of raising students' competence in mathematics in a developing country such as Kenya cannot be overstated. This is because to produce professionals in areas such as engineering, medicine and accounting requires a good score in mathematics. Students that will further their studies in these areas will find that vectors is prerequisite…