Undergraduate students in an introductory-level geoscience course successfully designed and conducted a science badge day for the Junior Girl Scouts. With national concerns that girls turn away from science at a young age, a service-learning project was incorporated into a college course with the end result providing a group of girls a positive…

Teachers working in inner city high schools in the United States face enormous challenges. Their students, most of whom come from economically disadvantaged minority families and often do not speak English as a first language, present a daunting array of educational needs for teachers and schools. Resources and school structures are seldom…

Research demonstrates that injection drug users with HIV and/or AIDS have difficulty adhering to complex regimens of HIV medications. Because of the risk of increased viral resistance associated with irregular medication adherence, there is considerable clinical need to assist clients who abuse substances in taking their antiretroviral medications…

The present research examines the achievement-related implications of establishing friendships with high-achieving versus low-achieving classmates. Fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade students (N = 929) participated. During the fall and spring semesters, the report card grades of children and their friends were obtained and children completed…

Investigates student perceptions of school membership, linking student and school characteristics to these perceptions. Draws on psychological, sociological, and educational theory to create a measure of perceived school membership: student feeling of belonging, student commitment to school, and student commitment to academic work. Discusses study…

Since Hirschi's (1969) seminal work with delinquent youths, researchers have included school bonding and related constructs in analyses of delinquency, school dropout, student motivation, risk and resiliency, and academic achievement. In addition to school bonding, researchers have studied school engagement, school attachment, school…

This paper focuses on the challenges faced by faculty in the urban teacher preparation programs, particularly in the area of technology integration by pre-service and in-service teachers in their classroom instruction. The paper discusses the issues of first-order barriers (access to technology, infrastructure support) and second-order barriers…

This article presents the results of a longitudinal study on the perceptions of a Web-enhanced learning environment by a group of beginning-level students of Italian. A Website was specially designed and implemented as a complement to the existing syllabus, in order to enhance interactivity, variety, and authenticity of materials and tasks, as…

Loyal alumni are a mainstay of financial support for many universities. This empirical study of university alumni situates the emerging theory of brand community within the world of university development and advancement. The study measures key relationships that one would expect to find in a healthy university brand community. Most importantly,…

Background: In this study, psychosocial functioning of different groups of young children with learning problems was investigated using a diverse set of psychosocial variables (including behaviour problems, academic motivation, social preference, and self-concept). Methods: For this purpose, children with low academic achievement, with a specific…

Individual differences have been identified as important factors that might have significant impact on students' learning. This study investigated the effect of student's cognitive styles, achievement motivation, prior knowledge, and attitudes on student's achievement in web-based learning. A web-based course was designed for second year…

The aim of this article is to problematise the dominant construction of "professionalism" as created and promoted by the United Kingdom Government through policy. Like other professionals working in education, early years practitioners are subjected to a disempowering, regulatory gaze in the name of higher standards. The preoccupation…

In this paper, I propose that we need to develop an appropriate set of conceptual tools for examining motivational issues pertaining to linguistic diversity, mobility and social integration in a rapidly changing and expanding Europe. I begin by drawing on research that has begun to reframe the concept of integrative motivation in the context of…

New information technologies can act as a Trojan horse offering activities that will require major changes in the teaching-learning process. Computer aided learning applications are able to offer advanced students the opportunity to improve their skills and to maintain their motivation. In the spirit of "learning by doing", they are…

One hundred and sixty eight students from five 11th grade chemistry classes participated for 2 months in an experiment that examined the effects of the Group Investigation (GI) method of cooperative learning on students' achievement, motivation and perceptions of their experience. An achievement test and Harter's Motivation Questionnaire were…