As the World Wide Web becomes an integral part of higher education, universities must determine the viability of using the Internet for their student evaluation systems. This chapter highlights important online-student-rating issues raised in this volume and in other research through a case study of Murdoch University's (Perth, Australia) online…

Doctoral research considered whether healthcare students were able to develop characteristics of Communities of Practice when engaged in an interprofessional online module. Using a case study approach the research included two phases. Within phase one a questionnaire was administered to the group of 109 healthcare students. These were analysed to…

Mathematical knowledge and understanding is important not only for scientific progress and development but also for its day-to-day application in social sciences and arts, government, business and management studies and household chores. But the general performance in school mathematics in Kenya has been poor over the years. There is evidence that…

In the past, the music curricula of Hong Kong (HK), Mainland China and Taiwan have focused on Western music, but with the advent of music technology and the new tripartite paradigm of globalisation, localisation and Sinophilia this has begun to change. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei share a common historical culture and their populations are…

In the United States, there were more than 500,000 enrollments in online courses in grades K-12 and more than one-third of public school districts offered some type of eLearning during the 2005-2006 school year. Research has been done on several virtual schools in North America; however, little information is available about current K-12…

The U. S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) commissioned a six-year study that generated information needed to assess the achievements of students with disabilities in their elementary and middle school years in multiple domains. The Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS) is documenting the…

We present initial and preliminary results from a questionnaire survey in early 2005 of former students who took the only entrepreneurship class taught once/year at Macalester College. The objective was to elicit their opinions of what should be taught, the importance of alternative classroom pedagogies, and judgments on how to evaluate student…

A large national study of schoolchildren aged 6-18 years was conducted to assess nutritional and socio-cognitive factors associated with body mass index (BMI). A questionnaire was used to assess nutritional quality of breakfast, importance of physical activity and food variety score, among 4441 students from randomly selected schools in all states…

There is sufficient evidence that linguistic, social and psychological system variables are important in second language acquisition. This study examined the contribution of a selection of these components and characteristics to second language acquisition, specifically, the linkages between social structure (particularly the degree of…

Having a child with autism can severely disrupt family life. Parents may experience emotional stress, anxiety, fear, and guilt. Understanding parental efforts in learning about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their experiences with a variety of therapeutic interventions and educational strategies is an important component of building…

Online classes appear increasingly popular, making it critical in each discipline to study the advantages and disadvantages of learning online. Following up on anecdotal impressions that scientific/technical writing students appeared to do either better or worse in an online course than an offline equivalent (unpublished data), it was decided to…

This article examines language learner strategy use reported by 121 Chinese learners of English through a questionnaire and the relationships between their strategy use and language performance on a national English proficiency test: College English Test-Band 4. Results showed that this group of learners reported using more metacognitive…

This article reports on the findings of a study looking at the role of the school-based mentor in developing the competence of trainee teachers in relation to the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the classroom. One key factor in determining the contribution of the mentor appears to be the level of confidence in his/her…

Over the next decade many countries of sub-Saharan Africa will face a demand for qualified secondary school teachers that current systems for teacher recruitment, training, deployment and retention will be unable to meet. While strategies for increasing teacher supply to meet this shortage have been suggested, less attention has been given to…

This paper reports and discusses the principal findings of an Australian study exploring the decisions of high achieving Year 10 students about taking physics and chemistry courses (Lyons, 2003). The study used a "multiple worlds" framework to explore the diverse background characteristics that previous quantitative research had shown…