Research on conceptual change assumes that students enter a science classroom with prior(mis-)conceptions. When being exposed to instruction, students are supposed to develop or change their conceptions to (more) scientific concepts. As a consequence, instruction typically concentrates on appropriate examples demonstrating that students'…

Offering a series of diagnosis and individual remedial learning activities for a general class by means of web and multimedia technology can overcome the dilemma of conventional diagnosis and remedial instruction. The study proposes a three-layer conceptual framework and adopts a two-tier diagnostic test theory to develop a web-based two-tier…

This report misrepresents and then criticizes recommendations from the Minnesota Department of Education, a think tank and two independent study groups, each of which recently encouraged particular voluntary efforts to reduce concentrated poverty and achieve racial and socioeconomic integration in schools and housing in Minnesota. In building its…

The often aggregated reports of academic excellence of Asian American students as a whole, compared to students from other ethnic groups offers compelling evidence that Asian Americans are more academically successful than their ethnic counterparts, particularly in the area of mathematics. These comparative data have generated many topics of…

This mixed-methods study looks at patterns of emoticon usage in adult, ESL student writing. Data are drawn from 13 students and their participation in online discussion forums designed to supplement a traditional ESL writing course. The study conceptualizes computer mediated communication as a hybridized and emergent form which utilizes features…

Active learning has been championed in academic circles as the pedagogical fix to boring lectures typically found in introduction to information systems courses. However, the literature on active learning is mixed. In this paper, we critically examine active learning research and discover a misplaced emphasis leading to paradoxical findings in…

Science instructors, even at the college level, are routinely confronted with two facts about their students. First, most of their students have a poor understanding of the nature of science (NOS). Second, many of their students have religious objections to particular scientific theories that seem to cripple their ability to learn about, or even…

Student evaluation of courses and teaching at universities remains a highly contentious and divisive topic. Emotions and anecdotal evidence can overrule conclusions drawn from research on the validity and design of course evaluations. However, even amongst researchers, there is significant disagreement on the efficacy of course and teaching…

Students should understand both the science and the engineering models of experimentation. Since students are often predisposed to using the engineering model, teachers must intentionally design activities that better reflect the nature of scientific experimentation. In this article, the authors recommend some guidelines that can be used when…

A popular misconception among the general public is that sex offenders most often victimize strangers. To better understand these misconceptions about sex offenders, this study determines the frequency of misperception in the general public and establishes if the misconceptions are related to the policy of sex offender registration. Using a…

Research Findings: The current study examined preschoolers' processing of false belief situations presented in published picture books. Children were read one story with a plot that revolved around a single false belief occurrence and one story with multiple false belief occurrences. Children's narrative retellings of the stories were utilized as…

This paper describes an activity the author has carried out with 72 high school science teachers to enable them to overcome their stereotypical perceptions of engineers. The activity introduced them to notable women in environmental engineering, and raised their awareness of these female engineers' contributions to engineering and society. The…

Intellectual and psychosocial functioning develop along complex learning pathways. Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich measured these two classes of abilities with narrow, biased assessments that captured only a segment of each pathway and created misleading age patterns based on ceiling and floor effects. It is a simple matter to…

Based on the analysis of available research on students' alternative conceptions about the particulate nature of matter, we identified basic implicit assumptions that seem to constrain students' ideas and reasoning on this topic at various learning stages. Although many of these assumptions are interrelated, some of them seem to change or…

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are seldom the subjects of higher education research. This omission is evident in the finding that, over the past decade, approximately only 1% of articles published in five of the most widely read peer-reviewed academic journals in the field of higher education have given specific attention to Asian…