To better understand what constitutes listening competency, we perform a systematic review of listening scales. Our goal was twofold: to determine the most commonly appearing listening traits and to determine if listening scales are similar to one other. As part of our analysis, we identified 53 relevant scales and analyzed the scales…

Little work is being undertaken in South Africa to systematically and intentionally prepare undergraduate students to pursue postgraduate studies. This is concerning given the shortage of postgraduate students and the small scale of postgraduate studies. The few programmes and endeavours that exist to prepare students for postgraduate studies are…

The paper reports a study of the effectiveness of co-teaching and co-generative dialogue in science learning and teaching in lower secondary science classes. The idea of co-teaching and co-generative dialogue--first proposed by two leading educationists, Roth and Tobin, in early 2000--made an international impact in educational research. In the…

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a study of instructional leadership in 20 Icelandic compulsory schools. More specifically, the perceptions of staff concerning supervision of instruction, and the views of principals regarding their role as supervisors of instructional development. Data was collected with questionnaires from…

Mixed methods were used to study the impact of the Project Approach, a curriculum component that can engage and motivate children to participate in learning activities, on the play behaviors and language development of preschoolers. Participants included 4 children with disabilities and 4 children identified as at-risk. Six adults received support…

The study examined the effectiveness of a workshop on Deaf culture and basic medical American Sign Language for increasing osteopathic student physicians' confidence and knowledge when interacting with ASL-using patients. Students completed a pretest in which they provided basic demographic information, rated their confidence levels, took a video…

In recent years, educational robotics has become an increasingly popular research area. However, limited studies have focused on differentiated learning outcomes based on type of programming interface. This study aims to explore how successfully young children master foundational programming concepts based on the robotics user interface (tangible,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the distribution of leadership practices in Sixth Form Colleges (SFCs). This is an area where very little research has been undertaken and the intention was to investigate the topic from a critical perspective using social constructionist methodology. Design/methodology/approach: The research…

The studies documented in the four articles in this special issue uniquely exemplify principles of design-based research as follows: by taking innovative approaches to significant problems in the contexts of real educational practices; by addressing fundamental pedagogical and policy issues related to language, learning, and teaching; and, in the…

The purpose of this study is to explore students' understanding of loops and nested loops concepts. Sixty-three mechanical engineering students attending an introductory programming course participated in the study. APOS (Action, Process, Object, Schema) is a constructivist theory developed originally for mathematics education. This study is the…

The study presents a comparative analysis of two virtual learning formats: one non-formal through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and the other formal through b-learning. We compare the communication barriers and the satisfaction perceived by the students (N = 249) by developing a qualitative analysis using semi-structured questionnaires and…

This paper presents the findings of a research project investigating the perceptions and expectations held by pre-service teachers regarding the childcare sector. It presents the views of a group of pre-service teachers both before and after their exposure to practice within childcare following a 10-week practicum. The personal experiences of the…

In this paper, we discuss the challenges experienced by Kenyan public universities in implementation of e-learning and recommend possible solutions towards its successful implementation. In the last few years, most Kenyan public universities have adopted e-learning as a new approach to teaching and learning. However, the implementation challenges…

The purpose of this mixed-methods research is to examine and contextualize the relationship between language learner strategies (LLS) and the English proficiency of 103 college freshmen in Taiwan, which focuses on the differences in intermediate- and beginning-learners with years of English classes. LLS are defined as techniques and behaviors that…

Many colleges and universities face record numbers of first year students leaving during or after their first semester of the first year. With increased access to higher education over the past decade the demographic makeup of universities in Illinois and the United States has certainly diversified. In the state of Illinois universities are…