Designing and implementing pedagogies that support collaborative groupwork experiences and which also incorporate the use of information and communications technology is a commonplace, yet complex, task. This article describes a case study that uncovered problems with such an approach that employed interdisciplinary group projects in an…

This study examined factors associated with the curriculum and instructional environments for secondary students with mild mental retardation, based on teacher report. A survey was mailed to 378 secondary special education teachers in Michigan. Teachers provided demographic information and answered questions regarding curriculum and instructional…

The curriculum of the Life Orientation (LO) learning area forms an excellent basis for equipping learners to respond positively to social demands, assume responsibilities, and optimise their life chances. I report on a qualitative study that focused on the extent to which schools and LO teachers succeeded in achieving the outcomes of the…

For the past 15 years, economist Ronald Ferguson has investigated the myriad factors that combine to create racial disparities in academic performance. Beginning with his analysis of the impact of test scores in predicting racial wage gaps, Ferguson has explored how rates of progress in narrowing gaps have varied over the recent decades, the roles…

Living in an age of communication, literacy is an extremely integral part of our society. We are impacted by literature during our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. "Literacy for the New Millennium" includes information from specialists in the field who discuss the influence of popular culture, media, and technology on…

This study examined how teachers in a Christian school in the North Bay, California, area, perceive the academic and behavioral performance of students whose parents are involved in the school compared to the performance of students whose parents are not involved. Parental involvement includes parents attending parent-teacher conferences, open…

This report brings together the latest available statistics on national achievements in child survival, health, nutrition, education, family planning, and progress for women. Each section contains a commentary, a presentation of related statistics, and a discussion on achievement and disparity. The sections are: (1) Introduction, "Social…

This report describes a course in the Irish student-teacher curriculum that was designed in response to criticisms of post-graduate teacher training that it was too theoretical and insufficiently practical. The design of the Applied Psychology of Instruction course was based on the teacher-as-researcher paradigm of professionalism. Student…

This document identifies skill standards for utility construction in a format that uses scenarios to provide a picture of the construction process under consideration. The scenarios provide a general description of the pipe laying and utility construction process. An introduction describes use and benefits of skill standards. Section 2 presents…

This paper reports a comprehensive "meta-review" and synthesis of research on variables related to learning, including both cognitive and affective schooling outcomes. A conceptual framework was developed, encompassing 228 items related to school learning, organized "a priori" into 30 scales within 6 categories ordered roughly from more distal to…

The paper discusses the results of a longitudinal study, conducted in Swedish public schools, of children in the sixth grade in 1979-80 (n=116) and children in the third grade in 1981-82 (n=123) with mild mental retardation who had not been labeled. The study replicates an earlier study on the incidence of mild mental retardation which was…

The impact of significant family life events on child educational outcomes was examined for a sample of 204 families in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, whose children began kindergarten in 1992, 1993, or 1994. These children and families were part of the Head Start Transition Demonstration Project, a longitudinal study to assess benefits of services…

This study, conducted at the Buca Faculty of Education, Dokuz Eylul University (Turkey), sought to identify factors associated with academic failure of college students. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire titled "Perceived Causes of Academic Failure Inventory" that identified 10 subgroups of factors: teachers' behavior;…

In spring 1994, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) collected information on student achievement in reading, U.S. history, and geography at grades 4, 8, and 12. To provide a context for interpreting NAEP findings, the project collected background information from students, teachers, and school administrators using separate…

In an effort to obtain a more complete picture of student outcomes, the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) undertook a 6-year study of the academic experiences of 10,777 students who entered in fall 1986 with no previous college experience. In addition to basic data on student characteristics, the study gathered information on student persistence in…