Lead (Pb) is one of the most significant environmental contaminants worldwide and has significant human health effects. Historic use of Pb in paint and gasoline, in particular, have made this contaminant ubiquitous in our environment although widespread use of Pb has declined in the USA. Unfortunately, segments of the population are still…

This paper reports on a study that sought to uncover and explore the beliefs female secondary pre-service teachers held about teaching and being the teacher as they entered into their teacher education programs. The results indicated that for the participating teacher candidates it was their prior teachers in their intended subject who most…

New trends in language teaching have resulted in a move towards research in the language classroom. A brief overview of classroom research reveals three distinct but inter-related research paradigms: classroom-centered research, classroom process research, and qualitative research, respectively.

The "Model Secondary (6-12) Plan for Reading Intervention and Development" has been designed to meet the cognitive needs of middle school through high school students whose reading performance ranges from those significantly below expectation through those reading at or above grade level. The reading needs of the population of students in need of…

E-Exercise Bases (EEB) are now used in the teaching of mathematics, especially at university. We discuss here the consequences of their use on the students' activity during computer lab sessions. Results stem from observations of several teaching designs organised in different French universities with three e-exercise bases. The analysis focuses…

In discussion of policy and practice on partnership between higher education providers and other stakeholders in initial teacher education (ITE), one significant approach has been to stress the desirability of developing models which are truly collaborative. This paper first discusses the "collaborative" model within a range of…

Goal setting has consistently been shown to increase performance under specific conditions. These goal setting effects have previously been explored from both a cognitive perspective and in terms of traditional behavioral concepts. We highlight limitations of these approaches and propose a novel account based on Relational Frame Theory. This…

In qualification programmes based on action learning, there has hitherto been little articulation of what is particular to research dissertations undertaken in an action learning mode. This article addresses the questions of what such a dissertation entails and how it can be undertaken, supervised and examined. It discusses some of the foundations…

Recently adopted standards by the International Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) require accredited schools to define a set of specific goals and student-learning outcomes from their mission statements. In addition, AACSB Participant Standard 11 requires a school to design faculty development programs to fulfill the…

WebQuests are activities in which students use Web resources to learn about school topics. WebQuests are advocated as constructivist activities and ones generally well regarded by students. Two experiments were conducted in school settings to compare learning using WebQuests versus conventional instruction. Students and teachers both enjoyed…

Laboratory classes are regarded as an important learning activity, but they also have shortcomings: laboratory classes are often an inefficient learning activity for students and often do not sufficiently support students in developing research specific cognitive skills. It is hypothesized that some of such skills can be achieved more effectively…

This paper reports the results of three studies designed to test the nomological validity of a consumer well-being (CWB) measure in relation to personal transportation. The CWB measure was developed guided by the theoretical notion that the CWB in relation to personal transportation vehicles is significantly enhanced when the consumption of the…

This study presents the random-effects rating scale model (RE-RSM) which takes into account randomness in the thresholds over persons by treating them as random-effects and adding a random variable for each threshold in the rating scale model (RSM) (Andrich, 1978). The RE-RSM turns out to be a special case of the multidimensional random…

We proposed a higher order latent construct of parenting young children, parenting quality. This higher-order latent construct comprises five component constructs: demographic protection, psychological distress, psychosocial maturity, moral and cognitive reflectivity, and parenting attitudes and beliefs. We evaluated this model with data provided…

In a review of the challenges to progress in providing social research evidence that might usefully inform policy, Oakley (2004) argues strongly that the "paradigm divide" between qualitative and quantitative research communities continues to constitute a major problem. Oakley refers to a number of recent critiques of what is seen as "misplaced…