This paper explores the implications of the effective integration of research, teaching and learning for academic development through the lens of an international multi-institutional comparison of student perceptions of research and its impact on their learning environment. The study, with a sample of over 500 final-year undergraduate students…

The proliferation of online course designs has changed the learning environments for many students and professors. Recommendations for best practice in online course design frequently include maximizing students' online peer connections, with the intention of building a viable, if virtual, online learning community. However, students' responses to…

This article provides a conceptual basis for a teacher preparation course designed to improve the writing skills and teaching practices of in-service teachers. To propose this course, we first examined the research on preparing all secondary in-service teachers to use writing well. Research suggests that teachers' histories as writers greatly…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not survey medium (electronic versus paper format) has a significant effect on the results achieved. To compare survey media, responses from elementary students to British Columbia's Satisfaction Survey were analyzed. Although this study was not experimental in design, the data set served as a…

This study is an investigation of the occurrence and awareness of violence in intimate partner relationships as reported by college students recruited by e-mail from a small Midwestern university. Students responded to an online survey using a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale 2. Data were collected on the occurrences of violent…

Using self-reported academic cheating from the classes of 1959 through 2002 at the three major United States military service academies (Air Force, Army, and Navy), we measure how peer cheating influences individual cheating behavior. We find higher levels of peer cheating result in a substantially increased probability that an individual will…

In Portugal, there is a diversified higher education system comprising some 160 institutions: universities, polytechnics and isolated schools, public or private, with a total enrollment of some 350,000 students. This article presents the analysis of the results of questionnaires which were completed in 2004 by students entering higher education…

Transition problems from secondary to tertiary level in mathematics have been a recurrent issue in Sweden. This paper summarises the development during the last decades. Results from two recent research studies that illuminate the transition problem are presented. The first one, based on empirical data from a major Swedish technical university,…

Students conceive of assessment in at least four major ways (i.e., assessment makes students accountable; assessment is irrelevant because it is bad or unfair; assessment improves the quality of learning; and assessment is enjoyable). A study in New Zealand of 3469 secondary school students' conceptions of assessment used a self-report inventory…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…

Here we describe a method for teaching the NOS called "Science as Storytelling," which was designed to directly confront narve realist preconceptions about the NOS and replace them with more sophisticated ideas, while retaining a moderate realist perspective. It was also designed to foster a more sophisticated understanding of the…

Institutional researchers have undertaken many studies of student attrition in the past but mainly focusing on the quantitative dimensions. No doubt it is important for institutions to be aware of their attrition rates and how this may vary by demographic and other variables in order to develop strategies to minimise drop-out rates and thereby…

The American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Plus 50 Initiative is a three-year initiative launched in June 2008 and funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies. It was created to support a pilot group of two-year institutions to develop or expand campus programs that engage plus 50 learners. The initiative focuses on three types of…

Researchers have demonstrated that students who had a strong sense of school belonging exhibited greater academic motivation and performance (E. Anderman, 2002; Faircloth & Hamm, 2005), had fewer emotional and behavioral difficulties (Furrer & Skinner, 2003; McMahon, Singh, Garner, & Benhorin; 2004), and were less likely to dropout of…

The purpose of the study was to determine if the constructs of teaching presence and the sense of community function as predictors of perceived student learning in an online course. Each participating online student completed an online survey comprised of an informed consent, an item regarding their perception of learning (Richmond et al., 1987),…