In 2005, turfgrass was estimated to cover approximately 20 million ha of urbanized land. That area is increasing with rapid urbanization, stressing the importance of water conservation in the lawn and landscape industry. Turfgrasses have been identified for replacement by presumably more water-efficient ornamental plant species to conserve water.…

Student support services, such as academic advising, promote college student retention and increased graduation rates. As educational institutions continue to face budgetary uncertainties, academic advising services are facing cuts that threaten their ability to provide student support. Online solutions are being advanced at many institutions, as…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study, which used sociocultural learning theory as its framework, was to understand the differences between personal culture orientation and online learning satisfaction by examining culture at the macro and micro level in a global learning environment. More specifically, this paper investigated the cultural…

Few studies have explored the positive characteristics that motivate doctoral students to pursue and complete their degree; research has historically focused on doctoral student attrition. To fully understand doctoral student success, research must focus on factors that contribute to completion. Based on Seligman's theory of explanatory style,…

This paper presents the initial results of a study of the evolution of students' knowledge of software engineering from the beginning to the end of a master's degree curriculum in software engineering. Students were presented with a problem involving the initiation of a complex new project at the beginning of the program and again at the end of…

Middle school students bring with them to the classroom powerful, informal resources for reasoning about mathematical ideas. However, little research has examined how these resources can interact with or support skills of mathematical justification. Here, we explore how middle school students consider inductive strategies--the use of examples in…

Too much of students' high school experience is impersonal. It leaves them feeling alone, vulnerable, and alienated. Evidence from The Learning Bar's "Tell Them From Me," the widely subscribed Canadian student survey, tells that only half of the students in Canadian high schools find their learning interesting, enjoyable, and relevant…

The "Beyond Crossroads" document (American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges, 2006) contains the Standard for Assessment of Student Learning. Its implementation standard requires that faculty use results from assessment to improve instruction. In doing this, each faculty member is expected to employ multiple assessment techniques.…

A brief history of the development of the empirical equation that is used by prominent, Internet-based programs to estimate (or calculate) the extinction coefficients of proteins is presented. In addition, an overview of a series of related assignments designed to help students understand the origin of the empirical equation is provided. The…

A 3-week laboratory module was developed for an undergraduate microbiology course that would connect student learning to a real-life challenge, specifically a local water-quality project. The laboratory series included multiple field trips, sampling of soil and water, and subsequent analysis for bacteria and nitrate. Laboratory results confirmed…

An institutional electronic portfolio called the "iPortfolio" had over 17,000 subscribers one year after its introduction at an Australian university. This paper reports on a study to determine how students use these "iPortfolio" accounts, and factors leading to uptake and effective use. Self-assessed competence with technology…

Punctuation is a surprisingly underexplored area of second language writing and learning. The small body of published literature about punctuation tends to look at ways in which punctuation can be taught. Little is known, except anecdotally, about how English as a second language (ESL) students actually feel about using English punctuation,…

Assessment in higher education serves multiple purposes such as providing information about student learning, student progress, teaching quality, and program and institutional accountability. Yet, little is known about faculty and students' attitudes regarding different aspects of assessment that have wide-ranging implications for policy and…

Differentiated instruction in the form of tiered take-home lab exercises was implemented for students of an undergraduate-level programming course. This paper attempts to uncover the perceptions and usage patterns of students toward these new lab exercises using a comprehensive survey. Findings reveal that these tiered exercises are generally very…

Although not specifically designed for this purpose, the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) continues to be used as a proxy for student satisfaction. This may be due to a lack of appropriate alternative measures, or a clear understanding of the relationship between quality and satisfaction. This study, therefore, examines the CEQ dimensions…