This article describes our interest in bringing together students' emotions and their motivation for academic work as these play out across the school year. We explore three main issues. First, we consider what some view as an incompatibility between students' use of established work habits (volitional strategies) and real enjoyment of academic…

The purpose of this study was to investigate users' perceptions toward e-learning courseware usability, giving attention to the variables of age, gender, prior experience with the Internet, and the amount of time the e-learner spent on the e-learning courseware to do his/her assignments. Based on a set of usability properties proposed in this…

Carol Twigg, president of the National Center for Academics Transformation and a secondary school teacher, debates on whether technology in the classroom improves student learning. She claims that the key to increasing student learning is to get students more engaged in what they are studying.

Despite the recommendation to maintain a brisk pace while delivering Direct Instruction programs, research evidence in support of brisk instructional pacing is mixed. This study examined the effects of slow- and fast-paced teaching on the response opportunities, participation, accuracy, and off-task behavior of 4 prekindergarten students…

The paper presents a study investigating the net-based learner autonomy of the first-year non-English major students studying in West Anhui University (WAHU). Through questionnaires and interviews, the study shows the problems in learner autonomy and presents a new perspective for the development of an auto-learning environment. The study reveals…

[Slides] presented at the Annual National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores the demographic information as well as how and where educational measurement professionals are in the field.

This study tests the claim that word learning and retention in a second language are contingent upon a task's involvement load (i.e. the amount of need, search, and evaluation it imposes), as proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). Seventy-nine beginning learners of Spanish completed one of three vocabulary learning tasks that varied in the amount…

This research study sought to understand the current state of Holocaust education in Romanian classrooms and how sociocultural and institutional forces influence its treatment. By identifying the obstacles, challenges, and successes of Holocaust education in Romania, this study can both disseminate the techniques and conditions that bring about…

The study in this article employed a multidimensional (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) construct of school engagement to examine its relationship to school achievement in mathematics across the five major racial groups. The sample included 115 American Indians, 486 Asians, 1,551 Blacks, 1,682 Latinos, and 7,554 Whites who participated in the…

There is still little consensus on whether and how teaching is affected by small and large classes, especially in the case of students in the later primary years. This study investigated effects of class size on teaching of pupils aged 7-11 years. We used a multimethod approach, integrating qualitative information from teachers' end-of-year…

The iPod's almost overwhelming popularity probably stems from the combination of power, size, convenience, and flexibility inherent in the devices. They fit into arm bands during jogging, ride in jean pockets, and swing from belt loops. They are small enough to easily be tucked into purses and backpacks, even large pockets. Clearly, using and…

In this essay, the author begins by acknowledging the necessity of teaching Native American and other indigenous literatures both alongside and independent of Western texts. Instructors should teach these works by listening to the Native authors' worldviews and literary traditions. However, when instructors try to teach Native literatures…

This article systematically reviews research on the achievement outcomes of four types of approaches to improving the beginning reading success of children in kindergarten and first grade: Reading curricula, instructional technology, instructional process programs, and combinations of curricula and instructional process. Study inclusion criteria…

Because studies have shown that classroom distractions can interfere with school activities, the effects of several kinds of interruptions on elementary school students are described and measured for their frequency of occurrence, the time required for recovery of concentration, and their influence on morale and concentration. Using a sample of 65…

Prior knowledge of the content of a passage should reduce the effort required to encode the passage, and facilitate its recall. The results of two experiments on the effects of prior knowledge upon comprehension of simple technical prose are presented. The procedure was to collect ratings of the amount of prior knowledge for individual passage…