Learning communities, freshman interest groups, or cluster classes are a relatively new trend on college and university campuses. In addition to improving freshman retention and performance, these courses create a bridge between the basic course and other courses. Learning communities are curricular structures that promote academic success by…

A study determined if cross-age pairing of first-grade and sixth-grade students would have an effect on writing achievement. For 6 weeks, one group of beginning first-grade writers was paired with more able sixth-grade developing writers, while another group of beginning first-grade writers and sixth-grade developing writers was not cross-age…

This paper presents a study designed to determine the reason first and post-first year students (N=61) chose to leave Chicago Urban University (CUU) prior to graduation. Data were sought from a random sample of 100 students via either a mailed or a telephone survey, with a 61% response rate. The 54-question interview/survey instrument examined the…

A study described the experience, or thoughts, feelings, and motivation of young adolescents reading a novel, with special attention focused on how and when students experience reading positively. Subjects, 24 eighth-grade students of above average reading ability, completed 13 log entries while reading "Good-Night, Mr. Tom," a novel…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of two university graduate students while taking an online course over the World Wide Web, in order to identify issues of design, implementation, and motivation from a user's perspective. The online course was a graduate class on the methods and techniques of training and development. Data…

This paper demonstrates with specific examples from various students' journals how subtly and, at the same time, pervasively ethnocentricity expresses itself, and offers suggestions on how to assess and combat ethnocentric beliefs through writing assignments and classroom exercises in an international business law course at Indiana University. The…

This paper presents results of a study that investigated the role of perceptions of normative behavior concerning academic cheating on self-reported cheating behaviors. A survey was distributed to 250 undergraduates (87 responses) in which demographic information was obtained and the students (nearly all aged 18-22 years) were asked about their…

There is a natural tension between experimentally designed studies and case studies, which differ in that they are not concerned with the interaction of variables in the quantitative and statistical sense. This paper describes a study that was not experimentally designed, but its major findings were generalizable to the overall population of…

Yale's Cooke Teaching Program is designed to diminish the sense of imperviousness and immobility that the university often conveys to its surrounding community. During the academic year, one Yale graduate student attended a high school senior honors English class twice weekly. It was an advanced class (mostly minorities), many were college-bound,…

Designed to facilitate communication and understanding among college students of diverse ethnic backgrounds, the Building Bridges Program at Shippensburg University (Pennsylvania) used trained student facilitators to lead classroom discussions about intergroup relations. In addition, these minority and majority facilitators shared personal…

This study presents a formative evaluation of "The Intelligent Physics Tutor," an interactive software program designed to improve high school physics students' problem-solving skills. The purposes of this evaluation were to describe how the "Tutor" was used in the pilot high school class; to determine teacher and student…

To change the way classroom discipline and student discipline are examined, a two-study investigation, rather than focusing on student noncompliance and other types of student misbehaviors, examined teachers themselves as potential sources of instructional and/or motivational problems in the college classroom. The first study was designed to…

An observational case study was conducted during a 6-month preiod in an effort to determine whether teachers of 4-year-old children had expectations for their students' social behavior and academic performance. Students were in the prekindergarten program of a private child care center. The study also examined the ways in which expectations were…

Working with in service science/mathematics teachers at the Aga Khan University Institute of Educational Development, Karachi, Pakistan we find that even though the teachers take aboard innovative ideas, they find it challenging to implement the newly acquired ideas primarily because of their inadequate subject matter knowledge. In this paper we…

A study examined the poetic conventions of rhyme, meter, and diction to determine whether central tendencies and differences in evaluative response at various stages of late childhood and adolescence were discernible. Data were gathered from students of four grade levels (5, 7, 9, 11) enrolled in New York City public schools (359 students in all).…