During the coming years the number of older adults will increase dramatically, which will require a corresponding increase in the number of social workers who have accurate knowledge of this population. This article reports the impact focus groups with older adults and with service providers who work with older adults and their families have on…

The potential of many African American students is undetected due to misperceptions about their intellectual ability and achievement. These misperceptions cause inadequate instructional responses, which in turn perpetuate the cycle of underachievement. This article analyzes the bases for many of these misperceptions, explores the impact of culture…

When survey respondents' answers include pauses, stammers, and hedges, does this indicate that they are in danger of misinterpreting the survey question? Or are disfluencies so common in ordinary discourse that they are nondiagnostic? We analyzed respondents' first utterances after survey questions in a corpus of 42 laboratory-based telephone…

The misinformation effect refers to the impairment in memory for the past that arises after exposure to misleading information. The phenomenon has been investigated for at least 30 years, as investigators have addressed a number of issues. These include the conditions under which people are especially susceptible to the negative impact of…

Children's literature is an important vehicle through which to expose students to environmental issues. Because children are curious about their surroundings, the environment supplies a perfect avenue for their learning to read, write, and make sense of their world (Kupetz and Twiest 2000). Children tend to respond better to children's books than…

In her work as a literary consultant--first in private practice and now at Georgetown University--this author has worked with many scholars who would like to adapt their research for a trade audience. Many shared a set of core beliefs about how the rules of publishing change when one writes for a larger, more general audience in order to publish…

Based on the conceptual change literature, this study assessed factors influencing change in students' misconceptions about psychology. We expected students' ability and their critical thinking to predict whether they would change their misconceptions following completion of an introductory psychology course. GPA, scores on a test of critical…

Misconceptions about forces are very common and seem to arise from everyday experience and use of words. Ways to improve students' understanding of forces, as used in recent a IOP CD-Rom, are discussed here.

One of the unifying themes of modern biology is evolution. In introductory biology courses, evolution is studied in some detail and used as a focal point for many courses. For many teachers of those courses, the greatest frustration is their inability to help students become Darwinian. Students do not reject evolutionary ideas, but they quickly…

Cellular respiration and metabolism are topics that are reportedly poorly understood by students and judged to be difficult by many teachers. Although these topics may not be required learning areas in some high school biology curricula, a grasp of fundamental concepts of cellular metabolic processes is advantageous for students undertaking (or…

Background: Neuroscience is unlikely to produce findings for immediate application in the classroom. The educational significance and practical implications of knowledge about mind and brain inevitably require some level of interpretation, yet the multiplying examples of unscientific "brain-based" educational concepts suggest this process of…

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis have become common techniques used in undergraduate molecular and cell biology labs. Although students enjoy learning these techniques, they often cannot fully comprehend and analyze the outcomes of their experiments because of a disconnect between concepts taught in lecture and experiments…

To understand evolutionary theory, students must be able to understand and use evolutionary trees and their underlying concepts. Active, hands-on curricula relevant to macroevolution can be challenging to implement across large college-level classes where textbook learning is the norm. We evaluated two approaches to helping students learn…

We report on responses to a series of four questions designed to identify pre-existing abilities related to debugging and troubleshooting experiences of novice students before they begin programming instruction. The focus of these questions include general troubleshooting, bug location, exploring unfamiliar environments, and describing students'…

Geoscience educational publications are reviewed in seven areas to identify future directions for curriculum development, professional development and research. The review shows that: effective teaching methods encompassing broad geoscience study still need extensive research; whilst some valuable materials have been developed for the teaching of…