Community colleges in a number of states are expanding their roles to include baccalaureate degree programming. While the lower cost for delivery of these programs is often a motivating reason for community college baccalaureate, other factors also make these programs attractive alternatives. This article reports the findings of a case study that…

This study investigated the relationship of first language (L1) skills in elementary school and second language (L2) learning in high school. Students classified as high-, average-, and low-proficiency L2 learners were compared on L1 achievement measures of reading, spelling, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and listening comprehension…

On a general level, the objective of diagnostic classifications models (DCMs) lies in a classification of individuals regarding multiple latent skills. In this article, the authors show that this objective can be achieved by multidimensional adaptive testing (MAT) as well. The authors discuss whether or not the restricted applicability of DCMs can…

This report has a simple aim: to present results from international assessments so readers can judge for themselves how American students stack up globally. It's intended to be a stand-alone supplement to the "Education Olympics" web event held between August 8th and August 22nd, 2008 (see edolympics.net). It shows how the U.S. has…

Incidental focus on form is one of several ways to direct language learners' attention to formal aspects of language within meaningful communicative contexts. Learners can benefit from focus on form, but the extent to which incidental focus on form, or any other type, is available to learners in advanced foreign language literature classes has not…

As the use of web-based homework delivery and checking systems expands, we have greater need to evaluate how students engage with these systems and how changes in the systems influence student behavior. Reported here is the assessment of WeBWorK, an open-source web-based homework program used largely in postsecondary math and science courses, with…

We describe the cognitive profile in a complete national cohort of children with cerebral palsy (CP). One hundred and twenty-seven Icelandic children (67 females, 60 males) with CP, born between 1985 and 2000 and assessed between the ages of 4 and 6 years 6 months (mean age 5y 5mo, SD 6mo), were included in the study. IQ was measured using the…

The present study investigated the perception and production of English /w/ and /v/ by native speakers of Sinhala, German, and Dutch, with the aim of examining how their native language phonetic processing affected the acquisition of these phonemes. Subjects performed a battery of tests that assessed their identification accuracy for natural…

This study investigated the classification validity of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) using a sample of kindergarteners (N = 177). Results indicated the cutoff scores for determining "at-risk" status on the DIBELS produced substantial false negative rates. Cutoff scores identifying students as at "some risk"…

Access to American higher education is increasingly becoming a privilege for upper-class youth while low-socioeconomic status (SES) youth are increasingly marginalized and unable to compete in the college choice game. In order to increase parent involvement in college choice for low-SES African-American and Latino parents, a paradigm shift must…

Developments within education, psychology and the neurosciences have shed a great deal of light on how we learn while, at the same time, confirming for us all that learning is a profoundly complex process and far from understood. Against this background, and in this position article, we consider the recent rise in interest in the concept of…

Background: On a normative level as a subject physical education and health seems to adjust rapidly to changes in society, whereas at the practical level it seems receptive to limiting factors such as time, facilities and dominating inherited practices. How can the structuring components and processes relating to the shaping, transformation and…

Language acquisition may be one of the most difficult tasks that children face during development. They have to segment words from fluent speech, figure out the meanings of these words, and discover the syntactic constraints for joining them together into meaningful sentences. Over the past couple of decades, computational modeling has emerged as…

This workbook for a library and information skills course at the University of South Florida (USF), Tampa campus, contains the following sections: (1) syllabus; (2) tentative course outline; (3) statement of the course goal, general objectives, and objectives related to LC (Library of Congress) classification and the online catalog, dictionaries…

Discussion of precision in information retrieval highlights a prototype online catalog, ILSA (Improving Library Subject Access), developed at Indiana University of Pennsylvania that uses subject clusters and classification. Topics addressed include problems with keyword searching, controlled vocabulary, and thesauri; natural language mapping…