Finds that students taught with a constructivist approach had much more increased personal knowledge concerning energy compared to students taught in a traditional manner. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/WRM)

A court-approved Milwaukee voucher program permits up to 15% of the city's public schoolchildren to attend private/religious schools at state expense. This represents no victory for vouchers. Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court found vouchers constitutional, it may not believe they are valid under the federal constitution. (MLH)

Uses a video presentation of six situations relating to the evaporation and boiling of liquids and the escape of dissolved gases from solution and investigates graduate scientists' understanding of the concepts of boiling and evaporation. (Author/YDS)

This article describes the light-based science circus the authors developed and tested with a fifth-grade class at Blackwell Elementary School in Richmond, Virginia. A science circus is a set of activities done in any order that together illustrate complementary properties of a science topic. As in a traditional circus, several "performances"…

This study explored how some college students understand the nature of the theory of evolution and how they evaluate its scientific status. We conducted semistructured interviews with 15 college biology seniors in which we asked them to explain why they think evolution assumes the status of a scientific theory, how it compares to other scientific…

Previous research has shown that--due to the extensive attention spent to proportional reasoning in mathematics education--many students have a strong tendency to apply linear or proportional models anywhere, even in situations where they are not applicable. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the "illusion of linearity". For example, in…

The renewal, modification, and ratification of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA; 2004) produced a number of changes in legislation, particularly in the identification for children with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). In particular, the requirement that a child must evidence a severe discrepancy…

Issues relating to the categorisation and labelling of pupils, and, the use of the terms "special educational needs" and "disability" in particular, have been the topic of debate in "BJSE" before. In this article, Sue Keil, a research officer at the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), Olga Miller, of the…

A racially mixed random sample of 247 students at a midsized public university in the Southeast completed the Student Development Task and Lifestyle Inventory at the beginning of their first year, beginning of their sophomore year, and end of their senior year (Winston, Miller & Prince, 1987). Results showed partial support of Chickering and…

This article, from the "Journal of College Admission's" Special Diversity Issue, which in its entirety has won the 1997 Muir Award, discusses various misconceptions regarding individuals with multiple learning disabilities and whether or not these individuals should consider college as an option. The author contends that students with learning…

Since the publication of Fodor's (1983) The Modularity of Mind, there have been quite a few discussions of cognitive modularity among cognitive scientists. Generally, in those discussions, modularity means a property of specialized cognitive processes or a domain-specific body of information. In actuality, scholars understand modularity in many…

A proactive instructional strategy for teaching evolution, which consists of the use of small group and peer discussion, is presented. While teaching about evolution, the teachers should consider and address the needs of the students and see the practical implications of the evolutionary theory by overcoming apprehension, misunderstanding and…

People frequently make assumptions about others because of their spoken or written use of a particular dialect or language. The varieties of English that people use are often regarded as indicators of corresponding intelligence, competence, motives, and morality. Such assumptions--frequently based on myths and misconceptions about the nature of…

A robust lag was evidenced between the attribution to an individual of a false belief about the world and the attribution of the false emotion associated with this false belief (Bradmetz & Schneider, 1999). This lag was unexpected in the frame of current theories of mind which consider that emotion has a rational cognitive basis. The present paper…

The aim of this study was to explore the reasons why vulnerable women refuse to take part in early interventions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 19 women who refused to take part in an evaluation of an intensive home visiting programme. A number of themes were identified including perceptions about vulnerability, misperceptions about the…