Global climate change, referred to as climate change in this paper, has become an important planetary issue, and given that K-12 students have numerous alternative conceptions or lack of prior knowledge, it is critical that teachers have an understanding of the fundamental science underlying climate change. Teachers need to understand the natural…

The impact and perception of students on the use of a simple, low technology-driven version of a virtual microscope in teaching and assessments in cellular physiology and histology were studied. Its impact on the time and resources of the faculty were also assessed. Simple virtual slides and conventional microscopes were used to conduct the same…

This paper describes a phenomenological study in which the authors explored students' experiences learning qualitative research in a variety of academic fields. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with six participants from various academic fields who had completed at least one post-secondary-school-level qualitative research course…

This article shares findings of how two third-grade children who have systematically studied history in grades K-3 analyzed historical sources on a topic about which they had no prior knowledge. In think-aloud interviews, the children analyzed written documents on the 1887 Dawes Severalty Act. One of the children, who tested on the third-grade…

Changes in high school students' (n = 94) conceptions of natural selection were examined as a function of motivational beliefs (individual interest, academic self-efficacy), basic prior knowledge, and gender across three assessments (pre, post, follow-up). Results from variable-centered analyses suggested that these variables had relatively little…

Making one's own learning choices is central to self-directed learning, yet the opportunity to choose learning activities is rarely given to students in formal educational settings. The case study reported in this paper is a description of student experiences and perceptions in a software tools graduate level class that offered substantial…

With the phenomenal expansion of distance education in Asia during the past three decades, there has been growing public demand for quality and accountability in distance education. This study investigates the national quality assurance systems for distance education at the higher education level in Asia with the aim of contributing to a better…

The article focuses on the transfer of knowledge learnt by students in the classroom to their experiential learning contexts. It is argued that transfer is not a simple process of application but rather one of recontextualisation of previously learnt knowledge. In order for students to perform this recontextualisation, some form of reflection on…

Probabilistic models of expected information gain require integrating prior knowledge about causal hypotheses with knowledge about possible actions that might generate data relevant to those hypotheses. Here we looked at whether preschoolers (mean: 54 months) recognize "action possibilities" (affordances) in the environment that allow them to…

It is widely documented that the density property of rational numbers is challenging for students. The framework theory approach to conceptual change places this observation in the more general frame of problems faced by learners in the transition from natural to rational numbers. As students enrich, but do not restructure, their natural number…

Thought processes of seven artist-level jazz musicians, each of whom recorded an improvised solo, were investigated. Immediately after completing their improvisations, participants listened to recordings of their playing and looked at the notation of their solos as they described in a directed interview the thinking processes that led to the…

Although vocabulary development is an important part of the social studies curriculum, vocabulary activities are often inadequate, leaving students with cursory knowledge of terms. Worse still is the fact that many of the most critical words demarcating the field are not included in those activities. Therefore, a transformation from viewing…

The relationship between cognitive style and trainee teacher conceptions of differentiation was studied to develop appropriate scaffolding of their learning. 149 trainee teachers enrolled on 1 year postgraduate initial teacher education (ITE) programmes at two UK universities completed the Cognitive Style Index (Allinson and Hayes, "Journal…

A fully online prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) tool for internationally educated nurses (IENs) was developed and tested by an inter-professional team at Ryerson University. The tool consisted of two stages: a self-assessment component followed by a multiple-choice examination and narrative (vignette) evaluation. The purposes of…

This article examines the perceptions of Accrediting Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) from the point of view of lecturers delivering higher education in further education institutions. Despite the fact that APEL is recognised as potentially providing a range of benefits for higher education providers, students and employers, little research has…