The pedagogical assumptions and teaching practices of learning community models reflect exemplary conditions for learning, so using these models with unprepared students seems desirable and worthy of investigation. This chapter describes the key role of faculty in creating active, integrative learning experiences for students in basic skills…

This study examines the cognitive costs of navigation aids in a hypermedia learning task. In a 2(navigable vs. non-navigable) x 2(map vs. content list) experimental design cognitive requirements were measured by users' eye movement data. Additionally, data from users' navigation operations, knowledge acquisition, and subjective evaluation of the…

Group contingencies have the advantages of encouraging individual students to collectively feel responsible for appropriate and inappropriate classroom behaviors and have shown effectiveness in improving students' behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a random dependent group contingency on the on-task behaviors of…

Conducted for the Bringing Theory to Practice project, this literature review examines the theoretical and research bases for linking engaged learning, student mental health and well-being, and civic development. The findings of this review are discussed briefly in this article. Current prevention literature recommends a shift from targeted…

The purposes of this study were to (a) assess the measurement of school engagement in prior research that used the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), (b) systematically develop an improved measurement model for school engagement, and (c) examine the measurement invariance of this model across racial and ethnic groups.…

Engagement is a core component of effective educational programs for children with autism. Analysis of 711 naturalistic goal-directed classroom behaviors of four school-age children with autism and four comparable children with Down syndrome (DS) was conducted. The definition of engagement was expanded to include child compliance and congruence. A…

The optimal stimulaton theory (which proposes that hyperactive children are more readily underaroused than nonhyperactive children and should thus derive greater gains from stimulation added to repetitive copying tasks than comparisons) was tested with 16 adolescents, rating high on attention and behavior problems, and 16 controls. Matched pairs…

This research proposed and tested a causal model of time-on-task as a mediating variable in the anxiety/achievement association. The study was conducted in 4 seventh-grade Chicago inner-city classrooms in 2 all-black elementary schools. A negative relationship was found between anxiety and time-on-task; a positive relationship between time-on-task…

For simple vocabulary items, the amount that subjects can learn during a given period of study is markedly underestimated when unusually slow presentation rates are imposed. That disadvantage apparently is less when subjects use the keyword mnemonic. The use of self-pacing or of multiple-rate conditions is suggested. (Author/LMO)

Examination of on-task behavior and academic performance of eight behavior problem second and third graders revealed that an all-positive approach relying primarily on praise was not effective. Ss' rates of on-task behavior were high and stable when an individualized reward system was used, however. (CL)

Reviewing the concerns expressed in an educational article written 100 years ago, the author shows that these same areas concern educators today. The article provides a perspective on the problems of education. (MD)

A survey of middle and high school family and consumer sciences teachers (99 of 300 responded) about financial topics identified by the National Jump$tart Coalition indicated that most high schools provided more instruction time than middle schools. Problem solving and decision making were most frequent processes. Only 46 schools offered separate…

Forty-eight individuals sorted picture cards according to basic (easy) or superordinate (difficult) categories, while being measured on response time to auditory probes (as an index of attention to the primary task). Subjects without mental retardation allocated more attention to difficult tasks. Those with mental retardation gave similar…

Data from the State Trait Anxiety Inventory completed by 74 older adult participants in a memory improvement program revealed state anxiety to be a significant predictor of recall. State anxiety and age were negatively associated with recall; study time and vocabulary were positively associated. (SK)

Describes a study that examined the instructional effect varying the positions of advance organizers, practice exercises, and feedback in an instructional environment. The effect of varied advance organizer strategies and students' locus of control orientation on instructional and testing time were also investigated. (Author/LRW)