This article explores the state of skills development for smaller enterprises in South Africa through a consideration of two recent empirical studies of very small and micro enterprises (VSMEs--those with 2-10 employees). It provides new evidence about the complexity of the VSME sector and the mixed performance of state attempts to engage with it…

Thirteen teachers and coordinators of vocational education and training in schools (VETiS) programs in eight Australian secondary schools were interviewed to determine the extent to which their involvement in school-based vocational education and training (VET) was grounded in their contact with contemporary workplaces, to identify the nature of…

Much research has validated procedures to enhance reading fluency in children and adolescents, but more is needed to determine whether such procedures work with adults who have deficits in reading skills. A within-subjects design was used to evaluate and compare the effects of listening while reading (LWR) and repeated readings (RR) on reading…

This meta-analysis reviews experimental and quasi-experimental studies in which students learned by constructing, modifying, or viewing node-link diagrams. Following an exhaustive search for studies meeting specified design criteria, 67 standardized mean difference effect sizes were extracted from 55 studies involving 5,818 participants. Students…

It is commonly assumed that environmentalism harms national economies because environmental regulations constrain economic activity and create incentives for firms to move production and investment to other countries. We point out that global environmentalism involves large-scale institutional changes that: (1) encourage new kinds of economic…

The study explored the beliefs of 100 residents of Greece about the capabilities of deaf people living in that country. Participants included deaf adults who communicated in Greek Sign Language (GSL), deaf adults who communicated orally, hearing adults who attended GSL courses, and hearing adults who did not attend such courses. Beliefs were…

Schematic models have been used extensively in educational research to represent relationships between variables diagrammatically, including the interrelationships between factors associated with teachers' beliefs and practices. A review of such models informed the development of a new model that was used to plan an investigation into primary…

In a multiple baseline design, a teenager with a mental age of four years was taught two abstractions. One was the oddity principle (selecting the one object in a group which differs from the rest). The other was seriation (aligning objects along a continuum of size, and inserting new objects into their proper places in the alignments). These…

Given the frequency with which the "system of least prompts" is used, it is important to identify procedures to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the system. This study compared effects of a traditional least to most procedure (TLM) and a revised least to most procedure (RLM) on skill acquisition in individuals with moderate and severe…

Children with developmental disabilities often have difficulty with joint attention that can affect more advanced communication skills. This study evaluated the complexity of child engagement behaviors demonstrated by twenty-five, pre-intentional children (age 9 to 25 months), who had developmental disabilities and were at risk for being…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that States provide a free, appropriate public education to children with disabilities residing within that state between the ages of 3 and 21. The ages of 18 to 21 constitute a unique time for students with disabilities whose peers have left public schools for postsecondary education or…

Individual differences in academic success were investigated in a geographically defined whole-population sample of very preterm children with a gestational age of less than 32 weeks or a birth weight of less than 1500 gm. The sample consisted of 264 very preterm children (75.6% of German-speaking survivors) and 264 controls matched for gender,…

Preservice elementary school teachers' fragmented understanding of mathematics is widely documented in the research literature. Their understanding of division by 0 is no exception. This article reports on two teacher education tasks and experiences designed to challenge and extend preservice teachers' understanding of division by 0. These tasks…

This study is an investigation into Chinese EFL teachers' knowledge and understanding of teaching English as a foreign language within the context of a time of tremendous social change in China. In a medium-sized city, biographical narrative interviews and observation were used to three Chinese secondary EFL teachers, of three successive…

High levels of academic achievement in Asian educational systems have generated interest in the study of motivational patterns of students in these contexts. The objectives of this paper are firstly, to provide a review of existing literature on the study of motivational styles amongst students and secondly, to identify the occurrence of different…