Choice of institution and field of study for a bachelor's degree in Israel was found essentially meritocratic although influenced by socioeconomic status (SES) as well. As expected, students of higher ability attend universities and those of lower apply to academic colleges. However, among students of higher ability, those of higher SES opt for…

Serious games use entertainment principles, creativity, and technology to meet government or corporate training objectives, but these principles alone will not guarantee that the intended learning will occur. To be effective, serious games must incorporate sound cognitive, learning, and pedagogical principles into their design and structure. In…

Workload has been found to be a major course-related factor that affects student dropout rates. A heavy workload combined with a lack of time can create problems for students with courses that, by their very nature, require extensive work outside of class time. One such course is the second-semester programming course at Illinois State University…

Upon numerous requests to provide ranking of world universities by broad subject fields/schools/colleges and by subject fields/programs/departments, the authors present the ranking methodologies and problems that arose from the research by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University on the Academic Ranking of World…

Information Systems (IS) departments are facing challenging times as enrollments decline and the field evolves, thus necessitating large-scale curriculum changes. Our experience shows that many IS departments are in such a predicament as they have not evolved content quickly enough to keep it relevant, they do a poor job coordinating curriculum…

The heterogeneous backgrounds and interests of prospective students has been an emerging challenge in Information Systems (IS) education. Pounding waves of technology carried students away from the shores of traditional IS training. Pragmatists avoided the traditional IS programs, many of which struggled among budget reduction, competing training…

Many have had high expectations for the impact of computer-based technology on educational practice. By and large, these expectations have not been realised. It has become evident that innovative technology alone does not necessarily guarantee progress--nor perhaps even significant change--in educational practice. This has led educational…

Computer science is becoming increasingly important in our society. Meta skills, such as problem solving and logical and algorithmic thinking, are emphasized in every field, not only in the natural sciences. Still, largely due to gaps in tuition, common misunderstandings exist about the true nature of computer science. These are especially…

The purpose of this study was to determine if a case-based reasoning tool would improve a student's understanding of the complex concepts in a Java programming course. Subjects for the study were randomly assigned from two sections of an introductory Java programming course. Posttests were used to measure the effects of the case-based reasoning…

Background: Universities have a vested interest in attracting and encouraging enrolment of as many high calibre students as possible. With greater frequency, universities are using marketing techniques to do so. Aims: The study reviewed current student opinions of a programme within a UK university to discover its shortcomings and strengths.…

Two of this article's authors--an art professor and a biology professor--shared a project for advanced biology, art, nursing, and computer science majors involving scientific research that used digital imaging of the brain of the zebrafish, a newly favored laboratory animal. These contemporary and innovative teaching and learning practices were a…

The 4th international conference "Nation and Language: Modern Aspects of Socio-Linguistic Development" continues an eight-year old tradition. The conference is organized by Kaunas University of Technology Panevezys Institute and aims to bring scientists and researchers together for a general scientific discussion on new trends in…

This paper reports on a study designed to examine the comparative efficacy of collaborative self-regulated learning and direct teaching on the reduction of computer anxiety among students, as well as the comparative effects of these models of teaching on student achievement. Using a quasi-experimental design, two equivalent groups of university…

This study investigated the ability of high school students to cognitively understand and implement parallel processing. Data indicates that most parallel processing is being taught at the university level. Instructional modules on C, Linux, and the parallel processing language, P4, were designed to show that high school students are highly…

The typical introductory programming course is not an appropriate first computer science course for many students. Initial experiences with programming are often frustrating, resulting in a low rate of successful completion, and focus on syntax rather than providing a representative picture of computer science as a discipline. The paper discusses…