When survey respondents' answers include pauses, stammers, and hedges, does this indicate that they are in danger of misinterpreting the survey question? Or are disfluencies so common in ordinary discourse that they are nondiagnostic? We analyzed respondents' first utterances after survey questions in a corpus of 42 laboratory-based telephone…

The misinformation effect refers to the impairment in memory for the past that arises after exposure to misleading information. The phenomenon has been investigated for at least 30 years, as investigators have addressed a number of issues. These include the conditions under which people are especially susceptible to the negative impact of…

Children's literature is an important vehicle through which to expose students to environmental issues. Because children are curious about their surroundings, the environment supplies a perfect avenue for their learning to read, write, and make sense of their world (Kupetz and Twiest 2000). Children tend to respond better to children's books than…

In her work as a literary consultant--first in private practice and now at Georgetown University--this author has worked with many scholars who would like to adapt their research for a trade audience. Many shared a set of core beliefs about how the rules of publishing change when one writes for a larger, more general audience in order to publish…

Based on the conceptual change literature, this study assessed factors influencing change in students' misconceptions about psychology. We expected students' ability and their critical thinking to predict whether they would change their misconceptions following completion of an introductory psychology course. GPA, scores on a test of critical…

Misconceptions about forces are very common and seem to arise from everyday experience and use of words. Ways to improve students' understanding of forces, as used in recent a IOP CD-Rom, are discussed here.

One of the unifying themes of modern biology is evolution. In introductory biology courses, evolution is studied in some detail and used as a focal point for many courses. For many teachers of those courses, the greatest frustration is their inability to help students become Darwinian. Students do not reject evolutionary ideas, but they quickly…

The purpose of this study was to compare the academic performance of students enrolled in coeducational instruction and single-gender instruction. Within this framework, the researcher examined class type, gender, and racial/ethnicity using the sixth grade CRCT scores of selected students in the areas of mathematics and science. The fifth-grade…

This study examined the improvement of students' comprehension of geometric concepts through analytical writing about their own misconceptions using a reflective tool called an ERNIe (acronym for ERror aNalyIsis). The purpose of this study was to determine whether the ERNIe process could be used to correct geometric misconceptions, as well as how…

Many teachers have a cursory understanding of culturally relevant pedagogy, and a desire to see it succeed in their classrooms. The problem is that in many cases, teachers have "only" a cursory understanding, and their efforts to bridge the cultural gap often fall short. "Culturally relevant pedagogy" is a term that describes effective teaching in…

Research extols the benefits of parent involvement in college choice, but low-SES African American parents are unable to match efforts of wealthier parents. This qualitative study found that in their communities the high school diploma was the normative credential for upward mobility. To this end, parents used narratives of struggle to motivate…

This essay is a response to Barbara Applebaum's essay, "Engaging Student Disengagement: Resistance or Disagreement?" in which Applebaum explores privileged university students' "disengagement" when asked to confront institutionalized oppression. Applebaum analyzes and recommends Lynn Weber Cannon's rules for classroom discourse…

This study examines why 51 schools declined an invitation to participate in a state-funded educator incentive initiative, the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program. Using data from an ongoing evaluation of the TEEG program conducted by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) under contract with Texas Education Agency, this…

As the use of 3D immersive virtual worlds in higher education expands, it is important to examine which pedagogical approaches are most likely to bring about success. AET Zone, a 3D immersive virtual world in use for more than seven years, is one embodiment of pedagogical innovation that capitalizes on what virtual worlds have to offer to social…

In a science education methods course, groups of students were initially involved in a face-to-face discussion and were sensitized about certain conflicting claims regarding a puzzling observation or set of observations. They were then instructed to resolve their conflicting ideas through electronic discussion. Students had two weeks time to…