Conceptions of 50 third graders (aged 8-9 years) in Italy about shopkeepers' profit were examined using the Piagetian clinical procedure, with an interview followed by a comparison task that checked comprehension. Teaching children about profit had a higher impact at posttest on children who could compare correctly. (SLD)

Describes efforts to infuse an international perspective into Clarion University of Pennsylvania's social studies methods course. Reports results of a pretest indicating poor knowledge of and interest in social studies among education majors. Discusses course activities, materials, and requirements. Concludes that knowledge and interest in global…

The regression-discontinuity design involving a treatment interaction effect (TIE), pretest-posttest functional form specification, and choice of point-of-estimation of the TIE are examined. Formulas for controlling the magnitude of TIE in simulations can be used for simulating the randomized experimental case where estimation is not at the…

Explores the collection and use of library and information science (LIS) monographs by academic librarians. The use of individual and focus group interviews to identify issues affecting the use and nonuse of LIS monographs is described, and the influence of promotion and tenure requirements on LIS publications is considered. (32 references) (LRW)

Describes a study that was conducted to determine whether learning to program a computer in Pascal or FORTRAN improved problem-solving skills of college students when compared to a control group and to determine which programing language was more effective in the development of problem-solving abilities. (26 references) (LRW)

Describes a study conducted by the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute for their forensic science curriculum that investigated the effects of computer-based instruction on student learning of psychophysiological detection of deception test question formulation. Treatment of the experimental and control group is explained and posttest scores…

Describes the design and exploratory use of an interactive hypertext program, SKEIM (Shell for Knowledge Engineering, Instruction, and Measurement), that was developed to record university students' review strategies of a set of lecture notes. Topics discussed include domain experts; navigation; text display guidelines; and the relationship of…

Describes two studies evaluating developmental reading instruction at Suffolk Community College, New York. One compared grade point averages (GPAs) for developmental reading students and two naturally occurring comparison groups. The other used pre- and posttest scores on the College Board's Computerized Placement Tests to document developmental…

Reports on a study that measured some of the less accessible changes in student attitudes toward the quality of instruction. Students in three history of psychology classes were given a "semiprojective" pretest and posttest. Concludes that student responses increased in level of abstraction, concentrating more on philosophical and general issues.…

Assesses the impact of women's studies courses on students' feminist activism and related behaviors in a qualitative and quantitative study of 161 female and 18 male college students compared with 154 controls. At posttesting, the impact of womens' studies was found in students' reports of increased activism and influence on personal lives. (SLD)

Investigated the attitudes of prospective physical education (PE) teachers toward teaching students with disabilities, before and after matriculation in introductory adapted PE (APE) courses and with and without practicum experiences. Surveys of students from seven universities nationwide indicated that participation in APE courses, with or…

Examined impact of a 5-week parent education course on parent-reported behavior of children whose parents were randomly assigned to parent education group or control group. Found that parent education did not affect boys' behavior change; younger boys showed more improvement than older. Parent education was associated with improved girls'…

Two studies demonstrated dissociation between preschoolers' understanding of pictorial and mental representations. Results showed that false picture tasks were significantly easier than false belief tasks. There was no correlation between performance on the two. Children were trained on false belief, false picture, or number conservation tasks;…

Describes a study that investigated the effects of search tools and learner cognitive styles on performance in searches for information within a hypermedia database. Students in a university English-as-a-Second-Language program were assigned to one of four treatment groups, and results show a significant interaction between search tool and…

Describes a study of undergraduates that investigated the differential effects of strategy orientation (memory strategy, organization strategy, application strategy, and read-and-study control) orthogonally crossed with learner activity (guided versus active) and outcomes. Transfer-appropriate processing theory, encoding specificity, and…