Purpose: The present study examined the effect of Directed Activity Related to Texts (DARTs) and gender on student achievement in qualitative analysis in chemistry. It focused on the qualitative analysis component of the Chemistry course, which for students has been perceived as being the most difficult aspect of their mastery of the subject.…

What are the effects of word-by-word predictability on sentence processing times during the natural reading of a text? Although information complexity metrics such as surprisal and entropy reduction have been useful in addressing this question, these metrics tend to be estimated using computational language models, which require some degree of…

This modest work of disambiguation begins with the simple recognition that there are 'hermeneutics' and 'hermeneutics', and argues that not all senses of the term have been given sufficient attention in the discussion of what religious education is and could be. I hope to do some important definitional work around the different senses that…

Religious Education (RE) naturally draws on various aspects of the academic study of religions to ensure the accuracy and currency of its content and pedagogy. This paper sets out the case for a more intense dialogue between RE and the field of biblical studies, in order to address perceived weaknesses in the teaching of Christianity in UK…

That religious and theological education today largely neglects reading as a spiritual discipline is a profound pedagogical oversight. The fallout contributes to the bifurcation of intellectual and spiritual formation in education. While the dominant mode of reading in the academy is beholden to the Weberian solitary, detached, and disenchanted…

The author questions the "just right" leveling of student texts as having put limitations on students and teachers in promoting literacy. The historical background for the leveling of text and readers is described. The author identifies a number of unintended consequences associated with the use of leveling and guided reading.…

A growing body of research has demonstrated that open educational resources (OER) provide an opportunity for improvements in learning outcomes compared to traditional texts. This project builds on the Open Education Group's COUP framework to explore student and faculty use and perceptions of an open education World Regional Geography textbook.…

This paper reports on the development and piloting of a new model of multiplechoice question (MCQ) assessment used in two undergraduate degree modules at a tertiary university. The new model was purposefully designed to promote deeper learning closely aligned with the SOLO taxonomy. Students were invited to participate in an exploratory…

While open educational resources (OER) have gained popularity, nearly three quarters of faculty are not aware they are available for use. However, when used, they are well received and do not negatively impact quality of learning. OER can be used within a variety of platforms, including software that aims to be more interactive and engage students…

How can we identify authentic reading material that matches the learner's proficiency and fosters their language development? Traditionally, this involves assigning a one-dimensional label to the text that identifies the grade or proficiency level of the learners that the text is intended for. Such an approach is inadequate given that both the…

Authors reflect the cultural codes of the societies they live in. When these cultural codes are decoded by the reader, it becomes easier to perceive the work in many aspects and make textual productions from the text. In this study, Iranian author Samed Behrengi's 10 story books which have also been popular in Turkey have been analysed in terms of…

Individuals often have misconceptions about education policy issues. Prior research has shown that refutation texts can address misconceptions in other areas (e.g., climate change, GMOs); this study is the first to explore whether participants' views on controversial education policies--the Common Core State Standards and charter schools--are…

In this study, integration, or students' connection formation across texts, was examined across two tasks: when undergraduates were asked to complete a writing assignment and a novel, diagram construction task. While the writing assignment asked students to compose an argument based on multiple texts, the diagram construction task asked students…

This paper explores different ways in which mathematics students read a section of a prescribed mathematics textbook. In this case, the students are mathematics teachers learning new mathematics in a self-study calculus course. Two students were video-taped, while they studied a prescribed portion of the textbook. The reading styles of these two…

This research presents a case study examination of the experiences of teacher candidates and their instructor as they participated in whole-group picturebook read-aloud discussions over the course of three months. More specifically, it is an examination of the ways that they co-created meanings as they engaged in read-aloud discussions designed to…