This article features the team of students from Madison (Wisconsin) West High School who took first place in the Seventh Annual Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), earning the title of national champion. The four-member team--Jacqui German, Tenzin Sonam, John Schoech, and Ben Winokur--spent several months perfecting their design after the…

When observers try to identify successive targets in a visual stream at a rate of 100 ms per item, accuracy for the 2nd target is impaired for intertarget lags of 100-500 ms. Yet, when the same stream is presented more rapidly (e.g., 50 ms per item), this pattern reverses and a 1st-target deficit is obtained. M. C. Potter, A. Staub, and D. H.…

The level of job performance, international comparability and competitiveness of Nigerian university graduates are burning issues. Consequently, the academic quality of Nigerian universities has come under severe criticism. Since university lecturers are key players in quality control in universities, this study explored their perceptions of…

This study examined the relation between classroom cultural and achievement-related characteristics and their influence on social outcomes in a sample of 74 fifth grade African American youth (41 girls; 33 boys) ages 10-13 years. Trained observers rated classrooms according to Boykin's (Boykin, Tyler, & Miller, 2005) definition of mainstream…

Drawing on 12 months of fieldwork in Hyderabad, India, this paper describes the emergence of "international" schools that are only accessible to upper-middle class and elite families and provide forms of cultural capital increasingly important for middle-class employment--"communication skills", "open-mindedness" and…

This study examines public school characteristics, and public and private school market characteristics, associated with participation among elementary-aged students in a means-tested school voucher program in Florida. Participants are more likely than eligible nonparticipants to come from disadvantaged public schools on multiple dimensions. On…

According to (P21), Partnership for 21st Century Skills (n.d.), unless the gap is bridged between how students learn and how they live, today's education system will face irrelevance. The way people work and live has been transformed by demographic, economic, political, technological, and informational forces. Schools must adapt to these…

Search engine optimization (SEO), the promoting of a Web site so it achieves optimal position with a search engine's rankings, is an important strategy for organizations and individuals in order to promote their brands online. Techniques for achieving SEO are relevant to students of marketing, computing, media arts, and other disciplines, and many…

In Socialist market economy, the characteristics of economic development tend to vary in different regions. Accordingly, enterprise education on college students has to be combined with regional economic features, particularly with a profound knowledge about the characteristics of local entrepreneurs. Insufficient resources and inconvenient…

Contests are usually applied in the academic environment to simulate real professional situations that require from the participants a more pro-active attitude than the one shown in conventional coursework. Although they are commonly applied in the scope of a unique course, the contest described here was an extracurricular experience applied in an…

The purpose of this study was to explore the motivation of a group of township learners who participated in a science fair known as Expo, by using phenomenography to explore their conceptions and experiences of Expo. The data comprised paragraphs written by the learners before the regional Expo and focus group interviews conducted afterwards. The…

"School Choice and School Improvement" brings together a collection of exemplary, policy-relevant papers that examine how communities, districts, and states use choice as a strategy for improving schools and student learning. The book includes sophisticated and insightful research on private schools and vouchers; charter schools and traditional…

On behalf of the states that participated in the 2009-10 State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (SCASS) on Technical Skills Assessment, this paper addresses two significant issues facing the nation: ensuring that more students are both college and career ready and addressing the need for better and more quality data to evaluate…

Today's students grow up in a technological milieu of hand-held computers with high storage capacities, internet access, and the ability to shoot high definition photographs and video. As such, they are empowered to construct representations of the past virtually "on the run." In this article, the authors investigated the historical "and"…

This article addresses what factors best motivate individuals to work toward shared goals. We propose that when individuals do not identify highly with a group, their contributions will mimic others': An emphasis on things done will increase their contributions toward achieving a goal, because such emphasis suggests the goal is worth pursuing.…