This paper reports on the results of a survey of primary teachers who attended a series of three 1/2 day workshops that focused on primary science activities concerned with two key outcome areas from the Tasmanian Essential Learnings curriculum: "Investigating the Natural and Constructed World" and "Inquiry." The workshops…

The purpose of this study was to examine the (a) perceptions held by high school business education department chairpersons regarding the characteristics of individuals entering and remaining in the teaching profession and (b) characteristics of schools that have been successful in recruiting and retaining business education teachers. The findings…

The delivery of pre-registration Bachelor of Nursing courses in Australia has primarily been through the traditional on-campus mode. The development and implementation of an external course mode necessitates pedagogical reflection on a number of delivery, design, implementation, and consequently evaluation, processes. This paper discusses one…

Although prejudice exists during childhood, it is unclear how attitudes toward peers of lower or higher academic ability and from one's own or a different racial group interact. This study qualifies previous research by showing that prejudice varies according to whether children are asked to evaluate peers based on academic ability, racial…

Introduction: Accurate self-assessment appears to be difficult and, some would propose, even impossible. Recent reviews suggest that peer assessment may be more accurate and that multisource feedback (MSF) may inform self-assessment. We had conducted a series of studies of family physicians in an MSF program including assessments from patients,…

The controversy regarding reverse or negatively-worded survey stems has been around for several decades. The practice has been used to guard against acquiescent or response set behaviors. A 20-item, 5-point Likert item survey was designed and the stems and response sets were varied in a 2 by 3 design. One independent variable was type of item…

Item-writing considerations in creating instruments using Likert-type scales, according to Michael Busch, include semantics of labeling response choices and number of response categories. Jean Turner discusses problems regarding the use of Likert-scale questionnaires for L2 research, for instance the cultural background of language learners being…

Presents a psychodynamic framework and research methods for examining the significance of patients' internal representations of therapy with their therapists. Two instruments, the Therapist Representation Inventory and the Intersession Experience Questionnaire, are introduced, and their psychometric characteristics are described. Findings from a…

Describes a method for disentangling changes in persons from changes in the interpretation of Likert-type questionnaire items and the use of rating scales. The procedure relies on anchoring strategies to create a common frame of reference for interpreting measures taken at different times. Illustrates the use of these procedures using the FACETS…

Applied the rating scale model (D. Andrich, 1978) to data from a survey of student satisfaction with college services using data from a single college with item samples sizes ranging from 2 to 355. Compared to items' average ratings, item parameter estimates in the rating scale model did a better job of predicting the item receiving the higher…

This research focused on the interactionist conceptual ecologies of inservice teachers and how these ecologies influenced these teachers' conceptual frameworks for the nature of science (NOS). The participants in the study were five teachers enrolled in a graduate course focused on NOS. Data included participants' responses to open-ended and…

The aim of this study was to investigate the students' preferred teaching techniques, such as traditional blackboard, power-point, or slide-projection, for biochemistry discipline in biomedicine and medicine courses from Sao Paulo State University, UNESP, Botucatu, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Preferences for specific topic and teaching techniques were…

This mixed methods study examined the relationships between students' learning goals, performance goals, study strategies, and test performances over a 14-week undergraduate course in educational psychology. Sixty undergraduate students provided goals at the beginning of the semester and reflected on their goals, study strategies, and test…

The present attempt is to study the use of computer and its possible relationship to Internet attitude, self-efficacy in computer and computer anxiety among higher secondary students. The present study aims at finding the levels of use of computer, Internet attitude, Self-efficacy in computer and computer anxiety among higher secondary students.…

There exists the need to better understand the effectiveness of online education. In recent years, academic institutions (of higher education) have increased the number of online courses offered to students. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that are most influential in determining student satisfaction of overall course…