A handful of studies have found evidence of a gap in academic achievement between students of high- and low-socioeconomic status (SES) families. Furthermore, some scholars argue that the gap tends to widen as students get older. Evidence is, however, inconclusive and relies mostly on limited methodological designs. Drawing on the Hamburg School…

Papini and Pellegrini (Papini, M. R., & Pellegrini, S. "Scaling relative incentive value in consummatory behavior." "Learning and Motivation", in press) observed that, within limits, the level of consummatory responding of rats exposed to incentive downshifts in the concentration of sucrose solutions was similar when the ratio of test/training…

Teachers need to address global climate change with students in their classrooms as evidence for consequences from these environmental changes mounts. One way to approach global climate change is through examination of authentic data. Mathematics and science may be integrated by interpreting graphs from the professional literature. This study…

Teachers who use graphic organizers find that students' memory of important material is strengthened. Graphic organizers also lend themselves to the presentation of material in an interdisciplinary fashion. An example of a successful graphic organizer from religion and ancient history is the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream that was interpreted by…

This article presents a speech delivered by the author for the Kent M. Christiansen Memorial Lecture series in April 2008 at Arizona State University. The author discusses why he thinks that approaches to academic advising theory and research that arises out of the humanities can be of great value to practitioners in the field of academic…

Efforts have been devoted to introduce in science curricula direct instruction for evaluating scientific reports on socioscientific issues. In this study, students' opinions on the SSI of mobile telephones effects have been investigated before and after a classroom activity designed to enable students to assess scientific data. Aspects of the…

In this article, in a context of wage equations with sample selection, we propose a novel interpretation of the partial effects linked to education as additional measures of returns to education that complement the traditional one, which is directly obtained from the estimation of the wage offer equation. Using European Household Panel data for…

When teaching phase partitioning concepts for solutes in porous media, and other multi-phase environmental systems, explicitly tracking the environmental media phase with which a substance of interest (S0I) is associated can enhance the students' understanding of the fundamental concepts and derivations. It is common to explicitly track the…

This paper will describe the use of developed resources for doctoral students taking a literature review class (DOC722) at the University of Phoenix. The paper offers a description of several Mindtools along with their educational advantages for research projects. Today's graduate students are challenged to identify and interpret relevant research…

Under No Child Left Behind, urban school districts have increasingly turned to interim assessments, administered at regular intervals, to help gauge student progress in advance of annual state exams. These assessments have spawned growing debate among educators, assessment experts, and the testing industry: are they worth the significant…

School improvement might be initiated by state or district mandate, or it might be motivated by the concerns of school personnel. Teachers and administrators frequently enter the process with some idea of what needs to be reformed or improved, but issues can be overemphasized or overlooked if the process does not begin with a comprehensive needs…

The study uses qualitative methodology to understand the "nature" of spiritual experiences that resemble self-realization or oneness, and the linguistic structures and representational knowledge used to comprehend and communicate such an experience. It draws upon Habermas' theory of communicative action to explain the nuances of communication as…

The Interlibrary Loan department at the University of Mississippi wished to examine interlibrary loan borrowing data dating back to the implementation of the ILLiad system in August 2001 in order to determine why the number of cancellations due to local availability continues to increase. The patron information was extracted in an attempt to…

In this article, the authors clarify and provide additional tests of the key elements of their age-period-cohort analysis of non-marital birth rates in this March 2009 issue of "Social Forces." Where Steve Martin, in his commentary, has suggested specific alternative specifications or interpretations of their findings, the authors have…

A new general explanation for u-shaped backward masking is analyzed and found to predict shifts in the interstimulus interval (ISI) that produces strongest masking. This predicted shift is then compared to six sets of masking data. The resulting comparisons force the general explanation to make certain assumptions to account for the data. In this…