This article discusses the potentially important implications of neuroscience or brain research, the newest "breakthrough" in education, for educators and the importance of sorting out claims on brain-based programs. It is obvious that brain research is not the elusive silver bullet that will answer all education problems. However, the new…

The authors evaluate the actual contribution to classroom practice of recent research in citizenship education conducted by two major international organizations: the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). The paper adopts Egan's (2002) critical…

Recent reform initiatives, especially the No Child Left Behind Act, tend to rely on a variety of highly debatable assumptions that fail to reflect the diversity of today's classrooms and also place pressure on educators in a manner we characterize as accountability by assumption. Such reform initiatives have become so political, complex, and…

This article addresses issues central to the task of Internet governance and, especially, to the management of the Internet's core resources. Early conceptions of the Internet as a virtual space that required no regulation resisted initial governance activity. More recently, work by people like Lawrence Lessig has clarified the complex…

The purpose of this study was to determine the beliefs about biological evolution held by college freshman students in one Catholic university in the Philippines. After 4 weeks of constructivist-inspired instruction, interviews and journal entries revealed that the students have diverse beliefs about the theory of evolution. They posited…

Debate over the link between student learning styles and effective teaching has a long tradition, made more interesting by Karns's recent article "Learning Style Differences in the Perceived Effectiveness of Learning Activities." Fundamentally he asserts, in critiquing Morrison et al. (2003), that marketing educators should not adopt "a high…

Researchers who have investigated the public understanding of science have argued that fictional cinema and television has proven to be particularly effective at blurring the distinction between fact and fiction. The rationale for this study lies in the notion that to teach science effectively, educators need to understand how popular culture…

The present study utilized both the IRT-LR (item response theory likelihood ratio) and a series of CFA (confirmatory factor analysis) multi-sample analyses to systematically examine the relationships between DIF (differential item functioning) and DTF (differential test functioning) with a random sample of 15 000 Korean examinees. Specifically,…

A study examined the relationship between two variable sets: (1) epistemological beliefs (Quick Learning, Simple-Certain Knowledge, and Innate Ability) and performance goals; and (2) conceptual understanding and application reasoning in conceptual change learning. In addition, effects of different kinds of prior knowledge on conceptual change…

Students in three levels of high-school physics classes (advanced, regular, and general) were studied as they learned concepts about gravity, balanced forces, and projectile motion to examine the effect of text and instructional techniques, such as prediction and labs, on learning. Reading appeared to be an effective influence on learning…

The goal of the Toledo, Ohio, Support Teacher Programs has been to improve the learning of math and science concepts at the junior high school level. This goal involves some basic changes in the way teachers interact with each other and with their students. The greatest changes have been in the movement away from the…

This paper addresses two distinctive issues concerning animistic and anthropomorphic thought in the context of constructivist science education. The first concerns the extent of such ways of thinking, both within science itself and within school science. The second concerns the implications of this for theories of instruction in science education.…

The focus of this study was to portray the ideas that students with four years experience in learning physics developed in regard to the second law of thermodynamics. Data were obtained through 34 clinical interviews with grade 10 students. An analysis of student arguments revealed deeply rooted difficulties in using concepts that were learned in…

The Van Hiele theory asserts that there exist five hierarchical levels of geometric thinking that a successful learner passes through. The purpose of the study described in this paper was to investigate the geometric understanding and misconceptions in students in the fourth through eighth grades who have been identified as gifted. The students…

An investigation of Ontario high school students' understanding of acids and bases with quantitative and qualitative methods revealed misconceptions. A concept map, based on the objectives of the Chemistry Curriculum Guideline, generated multiple-choice items and interview questions. The multiple-choice test was administered to 34 grade 12…