In the past, attempts to explain the disparity in academic achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged students have generally focused on the ability, aptitude and motivation of the youth themselves. Some theorists have even suggested that heritable differences in intelligence among students from different social origins may account for this…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if cognitive style (field dependence/independence [FD/I]) and gender interact with passage content to affect reading comprehension. Research on FD/I and its relationship to reading-related and other academic tasks served as the theoretical and empirical basis for the study. While most of the…

Educators have not been teaching to the learning style of boys, nor have they kept up with recent findings in brain research on the developmental differences between boys and girls. With all the education reform efforts about, with new accountability standards so high, school districts nationwide struggle to balance budgets and increase student…

In order to identify what other elements besides linguistic deficits could be playing a role in foreign language learning difficulties, the Kolb Learning Styles Inventory was administered to students enrolled in regular and modified Spanish classes at a major U.S. university. Preliminary results gathered as part of a longitudinal study on learning…

The present study examined self-reported depressive symptoms and associated cognitive features by reporting data from a 1-year longitudinal study of a community sample of 93 children and 69 adolescents. Results revealed that in childhood a negative cognitive triad appeared to be more a consequence than a predictor of depressive symptoms after 1…

Purpose: This paper aims to review the literature on the utility of employing the construct of cognitive style in understanding behaviour in web-based learning environments. Design/methodology/approach: The paper initially examines whether the web architecture may be matched to an individual's cognitive style in order to facilitate learning,…

Purpose: In the light of the growing emphasis on independent learning and non-technical skills in education and employment, the study aims to examine the relevance of learning style to student self-assessment skill. Design/methodology/approach: A sample of first-year undergraduate students was asked to provide self-assessed marks for their…

In lecture halls, in secondary school classrooms, during training workshops, and at research conferences, PowerPoint is becoming a preferred method of communicating, presenting, and sharing knowledge. Questions have been raised about the implications of the use of this new medium for knowledge dissemination. It is suggested PowerPoint supports a…

The present research examined relationships among medical school applicants' preferred approaches to learning, methods of instruction, and specialty areas (n=912). Based on confidential responses to a progressive series of paired comparisons, applicants' preferences for lecture (L), self-study (SS), group discussion (GD), and computers (C) were…

The purposes of this study were: to compare students' performance on conceptual and algorithmic chemistry problems; to investigate the relationships between learning orientation, formal reasoning, and mental capacity and students' performance on conceptual and algorithmic problems; and to investigate interactions among learning orientation, formal…

In light of today's dynamic health care delivery system, nursing education cannot be passive and still produce competent and effective registered nurses. Registered nurses must be able to communicate confidently in order to advocate for their patients and themselves. The nursing faculty at Seminole Community College have accepted the challenge to…

The cognitive profiles of children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF-1) have many similarities to those observed in learning disabilities in the general school population, as well as some distinct features. Approximately 30-65 percent of children with NF-1 have learning disabilities; most commonly, they have language and reading disabilities,…

A Mind Map is an outline in which the major categories radiate from a central image and lesser categories are portrayed as branches of larger branches. The author describes an in-class exercise in which small groups of students each create a Mind Map for a specific topic. This exercise is another example of an active and collaborative learning…

Assessment has become a powerful tool to change student learning. In a project of the Council of Engineering Courses of the University of Minho, Portugal, students of textile engineering, apparel engineering and industrial electronics increased their participation in every aspect of their assessment process. The traditional exam was changed to…

The study addressed two findings in the creativity literature that show, on the one hand, that bipolar disorder and other clinical dysfunctions are overrepresented among eminently creative people, and that positive affect is positively associated with creativity. The central hypothesis of the study was that emotional intelligence could be an…