Informal education in museums is structured through movement in space. This article summarizes a range of research that examines the role of spatial layout in shaping the ways in which visitors explore, engage, and understand museums and museum exhibitions. It is demonstrated that behavior patterns are systematically linked to spatial…

Reading is defined as a socio-cultural act negotiated between text and reader, and the act of reading is considered to be a cognitive process that involves knowledge not only of symbols/letters, vocabulary and structure, but also of culture. In other words, in order to understand the intentions of the author and to formulate meaning, the second…

Following Messick's definition of validity as a multi-faceted construct that includes contextual, substantive, structural, generalizable, external, and consequential dimensions, this study examined an established directed self-placement (DSP) system that had been functioning for ten years at a large university. The goal was to determine the extent…

One's position in an alphabetically sorted list may be important in determining access to over-subscribed public services. Motivated by anecdotal evidence, we investigate the importance of the position in the alphabet of Czech students for their admission chances into over-subscribed schools. Empirical evidence based on the population of students…

Teachers' views are worth hearing in order to get ideas on how to address the trend of declining enrolment in physics at the university level, which is regarded as a global problem. This study explores physics teachers' views on how to encourage more students to study physics at the university level. A sample of 166 physics teachers in Singapore…

This paper stems from a classroom discussion in which one author, a sixth-grade student in that classroom, contended that boys only read books about boys and proposed that the teacher change the situation by assigning books with both male and female main characters. The boys who responded emphatically denied the girl's claim, and the teacher later…

The initiation, organization, and management of a mentor program will be complicated. In the end, at the center of a mentor program are people who are eager to help their colleagues and who have developed some skills for coaching others as they encounter challenges and as they grow as professionals. In this article, the authors offer a rudimentary…

Roser discusses how both teachers and librarians, whom she calls the preservers of children's reading, should cling tightly to three essential practices to ensure that our children read more, read better, and read more widely. She argues we should: a) keep the classroom library viable; b) preserve, protect, and defend time for self-selected…

In this article, the authors introduce the epistemological concept of CRiT walking based on critical race theory (CRT). Using performance methodology, an operational extension of critical race theory is introduced as a CRiT walk through academic neighborhoods. The authors recommend openly questioning the structural inequities deeply embedded…

Middleverse de Español (MdE) is an evolving platform for foreign language (FL) study, aligned to the goals of ACTFL's National Standards and 2007 MLA report. The project simulates an immersive environment in a virtual 3-D space for the acquisition of translingual and transcultural competence in Spanish meant to support content-based and…

Pedagogical approaches that incorporate learning technologies into lessons and coursework have had promising results in relation to students' motivation to learn. Tablet PCs have been identified as one form of instructional technology that can facilitate learning among engineering undergraduates since this medium allows for drawing on the computer…

The purpose of this study was to develop a model that may be used to estimate the financial costs of teacher turnover in urban school districts. It is estimated that 50% of the beginning teachers leave the profession within the first five years on the job (Murname, Singer, Wilett, Kemple, and Olsen 1991; Colbert and Wolff 1992; Ingersoll 2003;…

This study draws upon social cognitive career theory and higher education literature to propose and test a conceptual framework for understanding the selection of postsecondary STEM fields of study by recent high school graduates who attend four-year institutions. Results suggest that high school math achievement, exposure to math and science…

This sequential mixed-methods study determined to what extent the factors identified in the literature were present in the decision to hire an internal candidate to the superintendency in Wisconsin in the last ten years. An initial survey was sent to all 424 Wisconsin public school districts and follow-up surveys sent to school board members in…

The article addresses the issues related to the use and evaluation of educational materials during the teaching process and independent learning. The first part defines the didactic function of educational materials, placing particular emphasis on the optimum explicitness of the educational contents under discussion, the improved rationalization…