This dissertation explores the lived experiences of educators who teach in flex model blended learning settings using online, vendor-provided courseware. The tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology grounds this inquiry (Heidegger, 1927/2008). Phenomenological research activities designed by van Manen (1990, 2002) provide the methodological…

This paper documents and analyses a range of literature and policy statements that identifies issues and looks at the role which adult education plays in building communities and peace in post-conflict states. This paper explores and documents these developments in countries in close proximity to Australia which have been viewed by the former…

The presence of a college or university in a community can be a source of great pride and economic vitality. An institution's presence, however, may also generate unintended off-site impacts, such as traffic congestion, inadequate parking, heightened crime, insufficient taxable property, and deteriorating neighborhoods, which strain local…

Two experiments investigated how absolute and relative distance shape adults' and young children's ratings concerning the extent to which the term "by" describes the relation between locations. Three- and 4-year-old children and adults were asked to rate how well the word "by" described the relation between several blocks and a landmark. The…

One calls people on the street strangers if he or she doesn't know who they are, so students whom the librarian has never dealt with are just that, strangers. When the school librarian gets involved in collaboration, most of the time they don't see the student's Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), language barriers, or anything else that…

People seek and provide support through their personal social network, especially when they must cope with stress, deal with an emergency, or need help. Coping with a new culture or new environment is a stressful situation that sojourner students must face. Support through friendship plays an important role in facing such new situations. Focusing…

Christian institutions of higher education, as with other American nonprofits, are under considerable financial stress. The purpose of this research, which included both a survey of development officers and conversations with a sample of CCCU presidents, vice presidents of development, or provosts, was to identify best practices in fundraising.…

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships between changes to computer self-efficacy (CSE) and computer anxiety and the impact on performance on computer-related tasks in both online and face-to-face mediums. While many studies have looked at these factors individually, relatively few have included multiple measures of these…

In developed countries, the evidence on the impact of school type on student performance is mixed. Researchers are also interested in finding out the effect of private school competition on educational outcomes. The evidence on this for developed countries is mixed as well. What is the effect in developing countries? There are not sufficient…

Objective: To examine the relationship between stores selling calorie-dense food near schools and student obesity risk, with the hypothesis that high availability predicts increased risk. Methods: Mail surveys determined height, weight, and calorie-dense food consumption for 552 students at 11 Maine high schools. Driving distance from all food…

Attentional demands of multiple-object tracking were demonstrated using a dual-task paradigm. Participants were asked to make speeded responses based on the pitch of a tone, while at the same time tracking four of eight identical dots. Tracking difficulty was manipulated either concurrent with or after the tone task. If increasing tracking…

This study examined the effects of collaboration mode (collocated versus non-collocated videoconferencing-mediated) on team learning and team interaction quality in a team-based problem solving context. Situated learning theory and the theory of affordances are used to provide a framework that describes how technology-mediated collaboration…

In 3 experiments, subjects named pictures with low- or high-frequency superimposed distractor words. In a 1st experiment, we replicated the finding that low-frequency words induce more interference in picture naming than high-frequency words (i.e., distractor frequency effect; Miozzo & Caramazza, 2003). According to the response exclusion…

"Compliance" is often used to describe a situation in which a child completes instructions from adults, and low levels of compliance are a common teacher concern. We conducted a descriptive assessment that showed that compliance was relatively stable for individual children, variable across children, and positively correlated with age. The impact…

In the split-attention effect spatial proximity is frequently considered to be pivotal. The transition from a spatially separated to a spatially integrated format not only involves changes in spatial proximity, but commonly necessitates text segmentation and picture labelling as well. In an experimental study, we investigated the influence of…