The validity evidences of thinking and creative styles were analyzed. Two studies are reported, one analyzing the dimensionality of creative styles and the other verifying their external validity. Participants were Brazilians, 1,752 in the first study (55% women) and 128 in the second study (53% women), among whom 45% had demonstrated creative…

This article describes the mechanism through which cultural variability is a source of learning differences. The authors argue that the Universal Design for Learning can be extended to capture the way learning is influenced by cultural variability, and show how the UDL framework might be used to create a curriculum that is responsive to this…

More than half of adults in the USA have quantitative literacy ratings at or below a basic level. This lack of literacy often becomes a barrier to employability. To overcome this barrier, adults are returning to college to improve their quantitative skills and complete an undergraduate education, often through an accelerated degree program. A…

There is an increasing number of students with disabilities entering into higher education, 10.8% from 7.2% over two decades. As this proportion increases, a more inclusive environment in higher education is needed, and universal design for learning (UDL) can serve as a solution. UDL is a framework of instruction that aims to be inclusive of as…

The study gathered data on learning styles, technical comfort level, age, gender, and undergraduate or graduate status to determine if these are predictors of student satisfaction in online learning environments. Student satisfaction was considered in terms of learner-content interaction, learner-instructor interaction, learner-learner…

This study examines young Chinese students' (born post 1985) adaptation to cultural exposure in the UK. Built from data collected from in-depth interviews, the research establishes that, through direct communication with students from various cultural backgrounds during teamwork, the Chinese students adapt to varying degrees in ideology,…

The present study investigated the unique contribution of learning approaches to academic performance, also taking gender differences into account. The participant sample consisted of 476 school pupils (53% girls and 47% boys) from two upper secondary schools in Sweden who completed two self-reported measures related to personality and learning…

Internet and electronic databases today offer the opportunity to reach an unlimited amount of information in a short time. Owing to this advantage, the Internet has become an important provider of "e-knowledge" and a basic tool in the process of research. It is essential that research undertaken by academic students on the internet…

Experiential learning pedagogy is taking a lead in the development of graduate attributes and educational aims as these are of prime importance for society. This paper shows a community service experiential project conducted in China. The project enabled students to serve the affected community in a post-earthquake area by applying their knowledge…

Empirical research supports the idea that differences in academic performance among students are largely due to their different learning and study strategies. The strategies, in turn, affect the self-efficacy of the students. Two hundred university students were recruited to participate in this study by completing a revised Chinese version of the…

The ability to think critically is an important trait of all members of society. With today's multinational, multicultural, complex issues, citizens must be able to sift through large amounts of various data to make intelligent decisions. Thinking critically must be a focus of higher education in order to provide the intellectual training for its…

The purpose of this study is to qualitatively explore students' interpersonal perspectives (i.e., "psychological safety," "value diversity," "trust" and "social interdependence") on, conceptions of and approaches to learning in an online peer assessment activity required for creating digital artistic works.…

The objective of the instructional experiment was to examine if the use of thinking styles is flexible in traditional and hypermedia learning environments, and if a hypermedia learning environment possesses obvious advantages than a traditional environment in adapting to students with different thinking styles. The participant university students…

In this study, structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to an instrument assessing students' understanding of the particulate nature of matter, the collective properties and physical changes, such as melting, evaporation, boiling and condensation. The structural relationships among particular groups of items were investigated. In addition,…

The authors examine conceptual change in preservice teachers through a synthesis and application of mental models theory. They analyzed longitudinal data in the form of lesson plans, interviews, and written rationales from eight, social science preservice teachers. Findings that illustrate how preservice teachers' mental models changed during…