When standardized English-language tests are administered to test takers worldwide, the test-taking population could be varied on a number of personal and educational characteristics such as age, gender, first language, and academic discipline. As test tasks and test items may not always be prepared keeping this diversity of characteristics in…

This article outlines a study conducted in Finland and Portugal into the reasons why International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) students choose particular Experimental Science (Group 4) subjects. Its findings suggest that interest, enjoyment, university course and career requirements have most influence on students' choices.…

Faculty members at a large state university engaged in discussions of 21st century communication, new media, and the demands for new communication skills as they elected to establish a Communication across the Curriculum (CxC) program in 2005. Faculty leaders reviewed communication theory (e.g., from McLuhan to Kress), best practices from other…

Educational policy continues to be of major concern. Policy debates about economic growth and national competitiveness, for example, commonly focus on the importance of human capital and a highly educated workforce. Defining the theoretical boundaries and methodological approaches of education policy research are the two primary themes of this…

Teacher education for literacy teaching is often fairly narrow in focus. New approaches are needed that are sociocultural in orientation and take due account of the diversity of language forms, both traditional and contemporary, formal and informal, literary and non-literary. We believe this need can be met by largely adopting a…

One strategy to prevent confusion as new paradigms emerge is to have professionals in the area develop and use a standard model of the phenomenon in question. The development and use of standard models in physics, genetics, archaeology, and cosmology have been very productive. The cognitive revolution in psychology and education has produced a…

This digest provides background information and sources that help in understanding the concept of educational technology. Specific answers are provided to the following 12 questions: (1) What is educational technology? (2) What are the roots of educational technology? (3) What is a good source of research findings? (4) What do educational…

Despite the coverage of multiculturalism in the press and on television, the choices the public faces are not limited to cultural separatism on the one hand or a dogmatic and narrow view of Western civilization on the other. A middle path of synthesis is possible, particularly if three areas of the multicultural debate are carefully analyzed.…

The legacy of reading professionals should be preserved through recollections, memories, or life stories of classroom reading teachers and university professors of reading education. The oral history project serves as the appropriate methodology for such an undertaking. The memories that comprise the human library, when preserved through oral…

This book examines ethnic studies and multiculturalism movements at the higher education level. It notes the different viewpoints of these two movements, with ethnic studies usually involving a focus on a single ethnic group at the departmental level, whereas multiculturalism involves infusion of multiethnic themes into the curriculum across…

Based on a World Wide Web site, this paper presents links to Internet resources related to communication, particularly intercultural communication. After an introductory section that discusses the organization of the web site and the effective use of the web site, the paper presents 97 links divided into sections on organizations, conferences,…

Anthony Biglan (1973) proposed a typology of academic disciplines that identified three dimensions of academics' perceptions of the similarity of fields of scholarship: (1) "hard-soft", (2) "pure-applied", and (3) "life-non-life". Derek Price (1965) suggested that bibliographic data could be used to provide an…

This report summarizes the responses of the State University of New York (SUNY) constituent institutions to the biannual survey of non-credit instructional activities for the period: July 1 through December 31, 1993. It provides statistical data and tables that summarize overall registrations and non-credit instructional activities and reports…

Students pursuing master's and doctoral degrees in disciplines other than statistics are required to take applied courses in descriptive and inferential statistics. These students are the brightest in their disciplines but lack mathematical background. Most are older, mature, working professionals who want the best out of these courses. Yet, they…

Through an examination of the technical and professional writing profession as it defines itself and through a citation analysis of its journals, this thesis highlights the literature, identifies access problems, and suggests some strategies for confronting bibliographic obstacles. After a brief introductory chapter, the second chapter of the…