Describes a study of fifth- and sixth-grade students that assessed the relationship of group size, exposure time, and attributions on children's performance on drill and practice of tutorial microcomputer tasks. Results of hierarchical regression are discussed and it is suggested that software designers focus on appropriate feedback to enhance…

A faculty development program that encourages faculty from different disciplines to engage in research on student cognition, motivation, and self-regulated learning in their own classrooms teaches theory as well as practice. The program has been well received by faculty and has also produced useful results for academic departments and the…

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a task-oriented collaborative learning (and training) experimental project that was carried out with future language teachers. More specifically, a class of sixteen French students enrolled in a Masters of Education course were asked to create multimedia resources for a group of Australian…

We use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the links between participation in adult learning and self-efficacy, particularly for the subgroup of adults who had low levels of achievement at school. We focus on self-efficacy because it translates into a range of wider benefits and because it may afford protection from depression and…

The purpose of this study was to identify cognitive and non-cognitive variables that will predict a student's ability to achieve success in the lowest level developmental mathematics course at San Jacinto College. The study examined the ability of cognitive variables (standardized entrance examinations, high school grade point average, and type of…

The 2008 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, a joint conference with the Michigan World Language Association, focused on learning about the diverse backgrounds and needs of today's students and discovering new ways to help them succeed in reaching the goal of language proficiency. A wide variety of workshops and…

A study investigated (1) whether Japanese learners of a second language have the same learning strategies as other groups previously studied, and (2) whether the experience of studying or living abroad affects learning strategy use. Subjects were 24 Japanese third-year college students, learners of English as a second language who were studying in…

During the past 10 years, the community college student population and its needs have changed, calling for community college professors to develop a better understanding of their students and to provide the appropriate classroom environment and content for this population. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, postsecondary…

Based on a long-term comparative ethnographic study in two Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) public schools, the study reported here describes what two teachers do to create successful learning contexts for the biliterate development of linguistic minority children in their classes. Two classrooms situated in contrasting community, program, and language…

If schools are to respond effectively to the problems of youth at risk, they must build "reclaiming" environments that recover alienated youths by addressing both the students' needs and the needs of society. In the first of three sections, this document examines the alienation of children in a frequently inhospitable society. Destructive…

Although the existence of small Catholic elementary schools (enrollment: 300 or less) is precarious, these institutions enable students to succeed academically beyond national norms, due to the special learning environment that they provide. The recent Small Schools Survey of Catholic elementary schools indicated that classes in small Catholic…

The classroom practice of promoting glib recitation, on cue, of the surface structures of a foreign language is criticized. This practice has been based on the belief that it equates with, or leads to, communicative performance but the author claims that the attempt to simplify language learning into a sequence of skills beginning with listening…

This paper presents the results of a study designed to provide an empirical test of a learning theory proposed by McKenzie and Staaf in which the student effort enters as an argument in the learning achievement function. The model states that final achievement in economics is equal to the initial stock of knowledge plus improvement, where…

TEACHING MACHINES HAVE SEVERAL ADVANTAGES--TIME IS SAVED, CORRECT RESPONSE IS REINFORCED IMMEDIATELY, AND STUDENTS ARE NOT PUBLICLY CONFRONTED WITH FAILURE. THERE ARE TWO APPROACHES TO THE PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION INTRINSIC TO THEIR USE--ONE (THE SKINNER METHOD) IS BASED ON FILLING IN BLANK SPACES, THE OTHER (THE CROWDER METHOD) EMPLOYS…

The Webster College Veterans' Accelerated Urban Learning for Teaching (VAULT) program, initiated in 1968-69, is designed to train the disadvantaged (primarily Negro veterans who would not normally attend college) to teach in ghetto elementary schools. Its purpose is to serve veterans and to control the following deficiencies in higher education:…