Individuals routinely rate themselves higher than their peers on a number of attributes and capabilities, including their satisfaction with life. However, the construct validity of this above-average effect requires specific psychometric properties of ratings of one's contentment and ratings of others' perceived contentment. This article tests…

Objectives: Understanding the role of religion and spirituality is significant for psychiatric practice. Implementation of formal education and training on religious and spiritual issues, however, is lacking. Few psychiatric residencies offer mandatory courses or evaluation of course utility. The authors present findings from a pilot study of a…

This study investigated the views about constructivist instruction and personal epistemology of the secondary earth science teachers in Taiwan. Participants were assessed through a paper-and-pencil survey and a "Learning environment preference questionnaire" (LEP) designed to explore personal epistemology. On a five-point Likert scale,…

The increasing accountability demands are leading some districts to departmentalize or consider departmentalizing at the elementary school level (Delviscio & Muffs, 2007). Departmentalization allows teachers to specialize and teach one content area in-depth which may, in turn, lead to higher accountability test scores. Although, due to…

Controlled Drawing Observation (CDO) was developed by Tove Krogh and it has been used in Denmark, Finland and Estonia for assessing a child's readiness for school. CDO is a group test, it gives information about a child's functioning in an educational setting and it serves as a starting point for later individual assessment. The goal of the study…

How does the type of learning material impact what is learned? The current research investigates the nature of students' learning of math concepts when using manipulatives (Uttal, Scudder, & DeLoache, 1997). We examined how the type of manipulative (concrete, abstract, none) and problem-solving prompt (metacognitive or problem-focused) affect…

This paper evaluates the attitudes of student teachers towards microteaching experiences. The research was conducted with a total of 57 fourth year students attending the ELT Department at Trakya University, in Turkey. The data were collected via a Likert type scale developed by the researcher. The research results were evaluated regarding the…

Due to the alarming signals of declining proficiency level among English Language learners in Malaysia, this study set out to learn more about the learners' perceptions of the teachers' code-switching in English Language classrooms. The objectives of this study were to investigate: a) learners' perceptions of teachers' code-switching, b) the…

Reading problems are the most frequent referring reasons for special education evaluations. Recent changes in the law have implications for the changing role of the school psychologist, specifically the evaluation and identification of students with reading disabilities. Traditionally, the assessment of children with suspected reading disabilities…

Elementary education faculty at this university embedded a Teacher Work Sample (TWS) performance-based assessment into the student teaching experience to assess candidates' ability to impact student learning as required by recent accreditation reforms. The authors conducted an internal evaluation of the TWS for the purposes of strengthening not…

In this study, we investigated teacher candidates' development of dispositions. Using case scenarios, we examined the dispositional levels of a cohort of preservice teachers, analyzed the effects of these dispositions on their ability to identify teaching practices to support diverse learners, and described the factors that influenced these…

This is a pioneer study of Macau's music education focusing on music listening preference. Adopting models from Western cultures, the study, launched in 2006, aimed to explore the factors of age and gender in regard to music preference. The subjects ranged from fourth-graders to university students (N=2495) (15 missing). Participants rated their…

This study examined undergraduate and graduate engineering students' epistemological beliefs as a function of their educational level. Schommer's (1998) Epistemological Questionnaire was used to assess the beliefs in quick learning, certain knowledge, fixed ability, and simple knowledge of 396 students attending two universities in Western…

In the State of California, an additional 100,000 teachers will be needed during the next 10 years to teach in K-12 schools (School Services of California, Inc., 2006), due both to population growth and the retirement of "Baby Boomers." This critical need to develop teachers in California will be mirrored in other states as well, and…

As more affordable synchronous communications are becoming available, the use of synchronous interactions has not been noted in course Web sites as often as asynchronous communications. Previous research indicated that the integration of synchronous tools into course Web sites has made a positive impact on students. While most of the previous…