Student evaluation of instruction in college and university courses has been a routine and mandatory part of undergraduate and graduate education for some time. A major shortcoming of the process is that it relies exclusively on the opinions or qualitative judgments of students rather than on assessing the learning or transfer of knowledge that…

Acquiring vocabulary in L2 is rather a difficult and demanding process and most of the language learners wish to know which vocabulary learning method and/or activity is more beneficial or even the best one; however, the responses to this question vary and there is no clear-cut answer though there are some various suggestions and conclusions drawn…

This study examined the effectiveness of a supervised mentoring program designed to improve the academic achievement of 834 low-income elementary and secondary school students in Seoul, South Korea. When compared to the control group, both elementary and middle school students exposed to the mentoring program improved in mathematic and reading…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of the instruction method "Thinking Actively in an Academic Context" (TAAC) in the thinking skills of 6th grade students in primary education. The sample consisted of 58 subjects, aged between 11- and 13-years-of-age, 27 in the experimental group and 31 in the control group. A pre-test…

This meta-analysis synthesizes experimental and quasi-experimental research on instruction that enhances the mathematics performance of K-12 students with learning disabilities. It reports the findings from this synthesis, discusses the implications for practice, and suggests next steps for research and professional development efforts in this…

We collected think-aloud, pre-test, post-test, and motivation data from 43 undergraduates to examine the impact of conceptual scaffolds on the fluctuation of certain motivation constructs and use of self-regulatory processes during learning with hypermedia. Participants were randomly assigned to either the No Scaffolding (NS) or Conceptual…

Effective teacher beliefs about students are an integral part of effective teaching. Teachers with interventionist beliefs about students ("I can intervene to help a learner with difficulties") show more effective practice than teachers with pathognomonic beliefs ("I blame the learner for his difficulties"). A professional development (PD) course…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of game-like activities on adult learning during a computer-based simulation. This research also studied the use of visual metaphors as graphic organizers to help make the underlying science principles explicit without interfering with the interactive nature of the simulation. A total of…

Using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental control group design, a learning environment study was conducted to evaluate the environmental literacy of postsecondary, nonscience majors. Data were collected from 183 students taking an introductory environmental science class--a 41-question Environmental Literacy Instrument (ELI) prompted students…

This study investigated the effect of preschool experience (two types of preschool: Madrasa and non-Madrasa) on the cognitive development of children in East Africa. In the three countries studied (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania/Zanzibar) preschool education is burgeoning and government standards are being set. This quasi experimental evaluation used…

There are hundreds of ways to develop creativity among children, youths and adults. Developing new ideas and ways of teaching creativity should also incorporate youth's interests and hobbies. The article presents the main information about the new way of developing creative abilities, especially creative imagination, the Role Play Training in…

This research investigated the value added to middle school public education by pedagogically trained college students. An experimental design was employed in which 680 middle school pupils were randomly assigned to instructional groups. University arts and sciences students were put into two groups on the basis of those with formal teacher…

Objective: The authors present a 9-week multicultural competence course organized around the DSM-IV-TR Outline for Cultural Formulation. Method: The course alternated large group lectures with experiential small group discussions to acquire knowledge, develop skills, and explore attitudes. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of the course on…

Two studies, an experimental category learning task and a computational simulation, examined how sequencing training instances to maximize comparison and memory affects category learning. In Study 1, 2-year-old children learned color categories with three training conditions that varied in how categories were distributed throughout training and…

The purpose of this study was to characterize cortisol response and regulation associated with shame responding in early childhood and to examine how general the relation between shame and cortisol is. It was predicted that children responding to task failure with shame would show a larger and more prolonged cortisol response than other children.…