How do educators and instructional designers assess the effectiveness of the learning environments they design? One important means of ensuring the effectiveness of instruction in distance and face-to-face settings is through provision of learner support. Increasingly, as learners utilize the World Wide Web for collaborative learning, support…

"Social capital" describes the strength of community as measured by the connections and levels of trust among its members. These connections are both formal and informal and the benefits include better health and better academic achievement. In this article, the author proposes two types of experiments to determine whether the…

Reliability and validity of three current instruments (Feminist Identity Scale [FIS], Feminist Identity Development Scale [FIDS]J Feminist Identity Composite [FIC]) used to operationalize Downing and Roush's model of feminist identity development were compared. A sample of 245 women completed all three instruments, and a separate sample of 35…

Lexical-decision studies with experienced English and French readers have shown that visual-word identification is not only affected by pronunciation inconsistency of a word (i.e., multiple ways to pronounce a spelling body), but also by spelling inconsistency (i.e., multiple ways to spell a pronunciation rime). The aim of this study was to…

The year 2004 is the centenary of the first official kindergarten in China. During this 100 years of development, early childhood education in China has experienced two big developmental spurts, first at the beginning of the twentieth century and then again at the turn of the twenty-first century. The argument presented by this paper is that…

English language development classes focus on teaching students of other languages how to speak, read, and write English. They must also prepare students to meet the many standards and requirements that are prerequisites to content classes, such as geography, and high school graduation. This discussion focuses on the integration of literacy and…

An individualized project is introduced to accompany a differential equations course with different modules ranging from standard to advanced levels with "Matlab" scripts. (Contains 1 figure.)

This article presents a longitudinal-sequential analysis of the developmental and reciprocal relationships between self-reported delinquency and moral reasoning (as measured with the Dutch version of the short form of the Defining Issues Test). Between 1991 and 1997 a large sample of 846 Dutch adolescents and young adults (15-23 years in 1991) was…

To date, studies examining the Sport Education (SE) model have largely focused on gains in sporting performance and/or psychosocial development. The purpose of this study was to compare the health-related fitness benefits for pupils participating in SE and traditional multi-activity (MA) units of instruction. Participants were two preservice…

In this self-study we examine our collaborative practice across two undergraduate early childhood education methods courses. Framed by our larger question of how teachers and teacher educators do school, we drew on multiple data sources to investigate how we were modeling teaching, listening, and learning to and with these students in our science…

This study examines the use of strategies and knowledge sources in L2 lexical inferencing and their relationship with inferential success. Data consist of introspective and retrospective think-aloud protocols of 21 intermediate ESL learners who attempted to infer new word meanings from context. Analysis reveals that (a) overall, the rate of…

Since coming to power in 1997, New Labour has adopted area-based initiatives (ABIs) as a key strategy to combat economic, social and (especially) educational disadvantage. This paper briefly outlines the history of ABIs within the UK and explores the discontinuities and continuities between recent initiatives and their earlier counterparts. It…

Self-efficacy is essential to motivation and learning. Compared to students with weak self-efficacy for academics, students with strong self-efficacy have higher motivation, make greater effort, persist longer, and achieve more. Unfortunately, struggling learners with weak self-efficacy often avoid academic tasks or give up prematurely, reducing…

As science teachers, they understand the importance of gaining student interest to promote learning. They know how challenging it is to spark the curiosity to truly engage students in the processes of "doing science." One often-used method of motivation is the demonstration of science in action. Demonstrations such as "discrepant events". They are…

Adult learners have unique developmental and social characteristics as compared to their traditional counterparts in higher education. Library instruction models used for traditional learners are not always effective when teaching adults. The author examines adult learner characteristics and adult learning theory and also uses personal…