Access to higher education in the U.S-affiliated Pacific Islands is limited. The island nations and territories in this Pacific region are geographically dispersed and separated by thousands of miles of ocean. Although local and regional colleges offer undergraduate degrees (associate's and bachelor's levels), islanders who seek graduate-level…

Latino/a youths living on the U.S.-México border encounter both challenges and opportunities, growing up with the values, traditions, and customs of two cultures. Many of these youths have lived all of their lives in a predominantly Mexican American community and have not actively explored what their ethnicity means to them. This study explores…

The purpose of this summary is to provide the public with an independent external assessment of ACCLAIM (Appalachian Collaborative Center for Learning, Assessment, and Instruction in Mathematics). The authors draw upon all the knowledge of this Center for Learning and Teaching that they have accumulated in past years, and they refer to that data…

Many adults in OECD countries have low language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills. The consequences of these low foundation skills span the economic, health and social well-being of individuals, families and communities. Investment in this sector of adult education is therefore crucial. This study looks specifically inside the programmes for…

The use of virtual or Web-based tours is on the rise in academic libraries, but with the loss of face-to-face contact and direct experience with the library's physical spaces, questions abound about this format's efficacy. Do online tour experiences measure up to those of a guided, face-to-face tour? Do online tours help mold students' perceptions…

This research investigates the impact of racial identity on Black students' perceptions of community outreach. Colleges and universities are steadily forming university-community partnerships. Research has not fully addressed those indicators that may influence relationship-forming between Black students and Black community members. The sample…

Two lines of research have emerged to study the causes and prevention of student failure in virtual (K-12) schools: studies of learner characteristics and studies of learning environment characteristics. To develop a useful model for predicting failure and promoting success in virtual school environments, a study was designed to measure the…

This paper reports the findings of a study of student attitudes and student improvement in conceptual understanding using conceptests with an electronic response system in lecture courses. Students and instructors valued the feedback and interaction that the response system afforded. For a majority of the chemistry topics studied, student…

Combining field experience with use of information technology has the potential to create a problem-based learning environment that engages learners in authentic scientific inquiry. This study, conducted over a 2-yr period, determined differences in attitudes and conceptual knowledge between students in a field lab and students with combined field…

Although academic writing in higher education has been the focus of research efforts for more than two decades, the specific writing experiences, needs and difficulties of undergraduate nursing and midwifery students have remained largely under-researched. This article reports on a project that investigated the nature and dynamics of academic…

Audience Response Technology (ART) has been widely adopted on college campuses, and prior research indicates that, on average, it receives positive evaluations from students. However, research has not yet examined how characteristics of students as learners influence their responses to ART. The current study examined aptitude for learning,…

Traditionally, transmission of cultural knowledge between generations in Micronesia was the role of family, in particular parents and grand parents. To what extent is that role still important today? In this article, we draw on data obtained from questionnaires distributed to high school and primary school children throughout Micronesia in 2002…

Previous research and retention interventions have been primarily targeted towards the freshmen, first-year experience (Gardner, Pattengale, & Schreiner, 2000; Pattengale & Schreiner, 2000) and yet, sophomores are a uniquely vulnerable group with increasing levels of dissatisfaction and attrition (Boivin, Fountain, & Baylis, 2000).This article…

This study uses social network analysis (SNA) in an innovative way to describe interaction and explain how interaction influences sense of community of students in online learning environments. The findings reveal differences on sense of community between two similarly structured online courses, and show unique interaction patterns for students in…

Although much has been written about the use of video cases--particularly, video cases in teacher preparation programs in the United States--little is known about what the consumers of video cases (i.e., preservice teachers) think about such cases and how they are implemented in teacher education courses. This research investigated preservice…