Dull classroom environments, poor students' attitudes and inhibited conceptual development led to the creation of an innovative mathematics program, the Class Banking System (CBS), which enables teachers to use constructivist ideas and approaches. To assess the effectiveness of the CBS, the Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire…

To undertake rigorous research in biology and ecology, students must be able to pose testable hypotheses, design decisive studies, and analyse results using suitable statistics. Yet, few biology students excel in topics involving statistics and most attempt to evade optional courses in research methods. Over the last few years, we have developed…

Rogers' diffusion of innovation model was used to examine the adoption and contribution of a web-based course management system at a college campus. This study surveyed 196 students. It was found that Rogers' model successfully explained the adoption of the innovation. The adoption of the innovation also led to increased interaction between…

The washback effect of tests on teaching has attracted considerable attention over recent years, but the critical question of how this translates into washback on learning remains under-explored. To address this issue, questionnaires relating to academic writing instruction were distributed to 108 learners from mainland China preparing for…

Given the important role of the affective variables in the process of learning, this paper examines ways of overcoming negative effects (i.e. anxiety, boredom) of the contextual factors. Exemplifying the uses of humor through context-specific, purpose-driven jokes, it maintains that humor can be utilized to produce a resourceful, encouraging and…

This article explores beliefs of Asian Indian teachers regarding the importance of use of developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms. A total of 178 Asian Indian early childhood teachers working in various early childhood classrooms in the southern part of India participated in the study. The teachers filled out a…

The purpose of the study reported upon in this paper was to determine what graduates of a teacher education program designed to prepare teachers who will work toward goals of equity and social justice were encountering in their schools and how they felt they were doing with regard to these aims and why. Eleven graduates in their second, fourth or…

Early adolescents may lack the cognitive and metacognitive skills necessary for effective inquiry learning. In particular, they are likely to have a nonnormative mental model of multivariable causality in which effects of individual variables are neither additive nor consistent. Described here is a software-based intervention designed to…

The Office of Civil Rights (2001) and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Antunez, 2003) mandate that language proficiency and academic achievement be measured in order to provide equal educational opportunities to English language learners and have an accountability system for their language and academic growth. The Cognitive Academic Language…

Trade and industrial (T&I) teachers enter the classroom as content level experts who may have acquired their content expertise through a combination of formal industry training and informal on-the-job experiences. When they make the career transition from industry to teaching, they must acquire professional teaching competencies. Like the content…

Background: We examined the prevalence and nature of comorbid post-traumatic stress reactions and depressive symptoms, and the impact of exposure to traumatic events on both types of psychopathology, among Palestinian children during war conflict in the region. Methods: The 403 children aged 9-15 years, who lived in four refugee camps, were…

In a study investigating the effects of student engagement in inquiry learning through the development of Web sites, nearly every student reported having enjoyed the project, and the majority scored an A or B for their project grade. However, neither enjoyment nor high achievement on this performance task necessarily translated into high scores on…

With the introduction of a growing number of private schools in the third world, several organisations and groups are endeavouring to examine the effects of such schooling systems on poor pupils. Professor James Tooley, the client, has collected data from seven regions internationally (three in India, three in Africa and one in China). For this…

This report is based on the assessment of ICT (information and communication technology) literacy conducted in October 2005. It describes the development of a computer-based tool for assessing ICT literacy among school students and the application of that tool with a nationally representative sample of approximately 7,400 students from Years 6 and…

The study described in this paper outlines an attempt to explore those factors that contribute to learning performance improvement in laboratory instruction. As a case study, the educational methodology involved in a basic microcontroller course was analyzed. Traditional lab sessions based on the control of peripherals with low interactivity have…