The causal effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention on children's reading activities and reading achievement were assessed in a randomized experiment involving 331 children in Grades 1-5. Children were pretested in the spring on a standardized test of reading achievement (Stanford Achievement Test, 10th ed.), on the Elementary Reading…

In this article, findings from a study of 150 10th-grade students attending 10 Boston public high schools are presented. Data obtained from surveys and interviews with the students in the study are used to illuminate how student perspectives on their school experiences can be used to strengthen reform efforts. Themes such as teacher-student…

District administrators, principals and teachers need "leading indicators" that provide a framework for intervention, can be used to guide school policy and practice, and can help staff identify issues relevant to particular students or groups of students. In this article, the authors describe "Tell Them From Me", an assessment…

While most existing online learning environments cater for needs identified during the 1990s, a new generation of digital students has emerged in the developed world. Digital students are young adults who have grown up with digital technologies integrated as an everyday feature of their lives. Digital students use technology differently, fluidly…

This study examines the historical understanding of 22 fourth-graders and 11 fifth-grade students in two classrooms in a suburban community near Cincinnati (Ohio). The classes were homogeneous racially, with no students of Hispanic, African-American, Asian, or Pacific Island descent in either class. The school reflects primarily middle and…

Experiential learning is, in its most simplistic form, a philosophical perspective that links the concrete with the abstract. If experiential learning utilizes the experiences of the learner, television is part of the learner's experience, and to ignore the pervasiveness of mass media in modern society is to ignore part of the lived experience of…

A study explored the degree to which males and females engage in social comparisons and the underlying factors that comprise and relate to social comparisons with advertising images for both boys and girls. Data were gathered from a sample of 225 females and 214 males between the ages of 15 and 18 from a midwestern high school. The same survey was…

A preinstruction questionnaire was used with two small group writing classes at Goodwill Industries of the Miami Valley, Inc. (Ohio). The questionnaire was designed to provide as much information as possible about the students' knowledge and background in writing. The survey had four purposes: determine what kinds of writing students currently did…

The purpose of this study was to identify which instructional models based on the framework of Joyce, Weil, and Showers, could be used effectively in distance education over the Interactive Video Network (IVN) system in North Dakota. Instructional models have been organized into families such as Information Processing, Social, Personal, and…

This study examined remedial/developmental studies students' attitudes toward computer aided instruction at a two-year college in central Georgia. A total of 86 students were surveyed with an instructor-developed instrument to determine if the students held positive attitudes toward using the computer, felt that computer aided instruction was…

A study examined the perils and risks of graduate school for students. The study used information from an interview with Dr. Jean Cunningham, Chief Psychologist at Southern Illinois University, to design a questionnaire to collect self-report data regarding the stressors that influence graduate students' lives. Of 50 surveys distributed to speech…

This paper compares the sense of belonging of students at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics (MSSM), a boarding magnet school in rural Maine, with that of students at a rural consolidated public high school serving two towns. This type of structure is known as a Maine School Administrative District (SAD). The school is identified as SAD…

Based on data from surveys of students enrolled in spring 1993 and spring 1996, the four briefs provided in this report describe alcohol and drug use among students at California's College of the Canyons. The first brief addresses the frequency of alcohol use by students, indicating that 15% of the 1996 students reported drinking three or more…

A study developed a valid and reliable instrument to measure learner empowerment and tested a model in which learner empowerment was caused by teacher communication behaviors and students' self-esteem. The model tested hypothesized teacher communication behaviors (relevance, verbal immediacy, and nonverbal immediacy) and student self-esteem as…

A survey was administered in September 1994 to 226 students enrolled in reading courses at Bishop State Community College to gain information about the students' reading habits and experiences and their expectations from the courses in which they were enrolled. Results indicated that: (1) math was chosen by 29% of subjects as their favorite…