Textbooks play a central role in Taiwanese education. In the wake of the political reform and social protest movements of the 1970s and 1980s that led to Taiwanese educational reform, critics assert that traditional textbooks reinforce the dominant national Chinese cultural identity without considering the specific perspectives and voices of…

In recent years project-based learning (PBL) incorporating online discussions has gradually been applied to courses that focus on writing projects. Past studies have shown that learners in PBL often face the difficulties of not having in-depth data analysis and peer discussions and how teachers design the rules and methods for online discussions…

"Computer Images for Lesson Support" (CILS) is a module for primary teacher education that aims at educating prospective teachers in designing multimedia-learning environments, with the aid of the Logo program MicroWorlds, and using it with children. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected among 44 student teachers during their…

This study used qualitative methodology to investigate the self-efficacy beliefs of early adolescents with learning disabilities (LD). We conducted a series of focus group interviews with 28 Grade 8 and 9 students with LD and individual interviews with 7 specialist LD teachers. Content analyses of the student and teacher data resulted in 2 a…

Objective: To record the views of individuals whose main professional role is community liaison on dental health education material for culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Methods: Tape-recorded interviews were undertaken, reviewed by two individuals and themes identified. Results: Twenty four individuals were interviewed out of a…

While most faculty and graduate students have opportunities to meet and begin networking at local, regional, and national meetings and symposia, the same opportunities do not exist for most undergraduates. At least four needs of undergraduates might be served by developing dedicated listservers and encouraging students to begin using…

A study explored gender differences in toy preferences, using 824 children's responses to a southeastern newspaper's request for letters to Santa Claus. The results suggested that it is in the choice of toys associated with some aspect of the adult social structure where children's preferences show the greatest gender differences. Changes in toy…

Interweaving sociological/interpretive and cognitive/linguistic perspectives, this book explores the ways in which children first encounter the written word in formal schooling. The book examines the "culture" of literacy as it is introduced and practiced in a corpus of 163 basal and supplementary readers used in a representative…

This document compares English-language Bible-based picture books by religious publishers and trade publishers, offering an assessment of quality and authenticity of traditional literature in this genre. Discussions of the genre's history, of recent sales trends, and of the contribution of exposure to Bible stories at a young age to later cultural…

Scanator is an extremely valuable tool in the functional analysis of qualitative stability in text building behavior during writing. Scanator also allows for a detailed investigation of subtle changes emerging in the structural relations of emergent novelties. This study focused on the extension of the application of Scanator to one pair of…

A study examined the research base for public speaking instruction. Persuasive speaking, informative speaking, and audience analysis and adaptation in five introductory public speaking textbooks were examined. Four of the texts were selected because they have survived in the marketplace through multiple editions; the fifth book was selected…

A study quantitatively reviewed empirical studies of negative political advertising using a method that combined citation analysis and content analysis. The citation analysis examined each individual cited work in 20 selected studies with respect to its citation information, and the content analysis investigated the 20 selected studies (citing…

A study examined six third-grade basal readers (from the years 1969, 1986, and 1993) to determine whether there has been a significant change in the portrayal of women characters throughout the years. Results: (1) showed more female main characters in the 1993 textbook sampled than in the textbooks from earlier periods; (2) found that female…

Many have argued for the importance of numeracy, yet little is known about the opportunities for numeracy available to people in their daily lives. In this study, characteristics of rational numbers in magazines written for children, teenagers, and adults were analyzed and compared. Analysis indicated that difficult mathematical concepts that…

The subjects of "Current Biography Yearbook 1970" and "Current Biography Yearbook 1991" were analyzed to see if the gender, race/ethnic group, geographic setting, and occupation of the subjects had changed over time. ("Current Biography" is a collective biographical source that contains short profiles of currently…