What are Turkish pre, elementary, middle, and high school students' force ideas? And, how do Turkish students' non-normative force ideas differ or be similar to the well-known force misconceptions reported in the literature? Students have false and persistent beliefs about the physical world and they struggle with challenging misconceptions based…

This is one in a series of policy briefs on key education issues prepared by the RAND Corporation for the Obama administration. Despite controversy, charter schools are increasing in numbers as alternatives to traditional public schools. Research finds that charter schools do not produce the predicted negative effects and that they have some…

Purpose: This report summarizes the Literacy for Deaf Immigrant Adults: A Symposium for Collaboration and Learning was a unique event, the first of its kind in Western Canada. Methods: An archival narrative approach was used to summarize and synthesize key outcomes from the symposium. Results: Participants identified key challenges as: (1) myths…

Background: Trigonometry is an area of mathematics that students believe to be particularly difficult and abstract compared with the other subjects of mathematics. Trigonometry is often introduced early in year 8 with most textbooks traditionally starting with naming sides of right-angled triangles. Students need to see and understand why their…

Secondary school chemistry teachers' understanding of chemical equilibrium was investigated through interviews using the think-aloud technique. The interviews were conducted with twelve volunteer chemistry teachers in Hong Kong. Their teaching experience ranged from 3 to 18 years. They were asked to predict what would happen to the equilibrium…

This study explored the differences between eight-year elementary school pupils (before the curriculum reform) and nine-year elementary school pupils (soon after the curriculum reform) in Slovenia, as regards specific chemistry knowledge and motivation to learn chemistry. Altogether, 191 elementary school pupils participated in the study. The…

This paper discusses what chemistry students might see while working with animations found on the Internet and how these electronic illustrations can potentially interact to reinforce rather than resolve misconceptions about chemical principles that a student may possess. The Daniell voltaic cell serves as an example to illustrate the ways in…

The focus of this paper is the use of National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) items to develop students' competence in reading mathematical text, to promote thinking strategies including estimation, and to evaluate alternative solutions for errors and misconceptions. Showing students test items and discussing strategies for…

Constructivism has emerged as a very powerful model for explaining how knowledge is produced in the world as well as how students learn. Moreover, constructivist teaching practices are becoming more prevalent in teacher education programs and public schools across the nation, while demonstrating significant success in promoting student learning.…

Although most instructors would like to believe that their students fully understand every biological concept explained in class, this is often not the case. Gary Wisehart, chair and professor of biology at San Diego City College, knows this from firsthand experience. "Students get very good at telling you what you want to hear," he says, "so it…

Myths, stereotypes, and controlling images are embedded in the cultural textbook of cinema. Women are disempowered and marginalized by these images, and it is important to explore the existence and prevalence of these images in order to examine their effects on women's development. A review of the literature concerning controlling images and the…

More than 25 years ago, the myth that a small gifted program compensated for a "sick" regular education program took its place in the "Gifted Child Quarterly" special issue pantheon. The myth was framed from the perspective of school districts who implemented limited, part-time programs for gifted students to "comfort…

In many ways, meeting the needs of gifted students through differentiation of curriculum and instruction within the regular classroom seems a perfect solution to the issues that have plagued gifted education for many years and remain largely unresolved. So why "is" it a myth that differentiated instruction in the regular classroom is an…

This article discusses in its first part three common misconceptions related to the operation of distance education providers in the digital age: The tendency to relate to e-learning as the new generation of distance education; the confusion between ends and means of distance education; and the absence of the teachers' crucial role in the…

Male perpetrated sexual aggression has long been recognized as a serious problem on college campuses. The purpose of this multiple regression correlation study was to assess the relationship between levels of moral development (measured by the Defining Issues Test) and the degree to which first-year college men (N = 161) ascribed to rape…