Surveys 320 Japanese families residing temporarily in the United Kingdom about their language use and language needs and the priorities they attach to their children's learning of English and Japanese. Examines English and Japanese in the children's linguistic environment, including language used with parents, siblings, and care givers;…

First-year undergraduate science students experienced a writing program as an important part of their assessment in a biology subject. The writing program was designed to help them develop both their scientific understanding as well as their written scientific expression. Open-ended questionnaires investigating the quality of the experience of…

The National Association of Industrial and Technical Teacher Educators (NAITTE) will celebrate its 69th birthday this year. In keeping with this progression of years, the products and services of the organization are advancing as well: the "Journal of Industrial Teacher Education (JITE)" will turn 43, the Industrial Teacher Education Directory…

Underrepresentation of African American students in gifted programs has alarmed the Office of Civil Rights. Achievement gaps between children from minority and low income homes and Caucasian students from middle-high income homes is a pressing concern in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the implementation of…

To explore issue-specific barriers to teaching environmental issues, the authors investigated secondary science teachers' perceived current and preferred teaching levels for 23 environmental issues and perceived barriers to teaching the selected issues. Subjects in this graduate project were 41 secondary science teachers self-selected to answer a…

Claude Steeles' stereotype threat hypothesis posits that when there are negative stereotypes about the intellectual capacity of certain (stigmatised) groups, members of that group suffer aversive consequences; group members who are most strongly identified with the stigmatised domain in question (e.g., intellectual or academic ability) are those…

Dull classroom environments, poor students' attitudes and inhibited conceptual development led to the creation of an innovative mathematics program, the Class Banking System (CBS), which enables teachers to use constructivist ideas and approaches. To assess the effectiveness of the CBS, the Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire…

To undertake rigorous research in biology and ecology, students must be able to pose testable hypotheses, design decisive studies, and analyse results using suitable statistics. Yet, few biology students excel in topics involving statistics and most attempt to evade optional courses in research methods. Over the last few years, we have developed…

Rogers' diffusion of innovation model was used to examine the adoption and contribution of a web-based course management system at a college campus. This study surveyed 196 students. It was found that Rogers' model successfully explained the adoption of the innovation. The adoption of the innovation also led to increased interaction between…

The washback effect of tests on teaching has attracted considerable attention over recent years, but the critical question of how this translates into washback on learning remains under-explored. To address this issue, questionnaires relating to academic writing instruction were distributed to 108 learners from mainland China preparing for…

Given the important role of the affective variables in the process of learning, this paper examines ways of overcoming negative effects (i.e. anxiety, boredom) of the contextual factors. Exemplifying the uses of humor through context-specific, purpose-driven jokes, it maintains that humor can be utilized to produce a resourceful, encouraging and…

This article explores beliefs of Asian Indian teachers regarding the importance of use of developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms. A total of 178 Asian Indian early childhood teachers working in various early childhood classrooms in the southern part of India participated in the study. The teachers filled out a…

The purpose of the study reported upon in this paper was to determine what graduates of a teacher education program designed to prepare teachers who will work toward goals of equity and social justice were encountering in their schools and how they felt they were doing with regard to these aims and why. Eleven graduates in their second, fourth or…

Early adolescents may lack the cognitive and metacognitive skills necessary for effective inquiry learning. In particular, they are likely to have a nonnormative mental model of multivariable causality in which effects of individual variables are neither additive nor consistent. Described here is a software-based intervention designed to…

The Office of Civil Rights (2001) and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Antunez, 2003) mandate that language proficiency and academic achievement be measured in order to provide equal educational opportunities to English language learners and have an accountability system for their language and academic growth. The Cognitive Academic Language…