Educational psychologists find that prior knowledge influences new learning. We examined whether course achievement for introductory psychology students is facilitated or impaired by their prior knowledge of psychology. We administered a pretest exam to 422 students early in the semester and gathered subsequent exam scores and other measures of…

Many studies have examined the relationship between environmental processes and literacy outcomes. However, nearly all of this research has examined biologically related family members living together, thus confounding genetic and environmental influences. The purpose of this study was to address this issue using a sample of 262 adopted children…

This research examined changes in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation during the transition from junior to senior high school as well as the impact of motivational changes on various educational consequences (i.e., dropout intentions, absenteeism, homework frequency, and educational aspirations). A total of 646 participants completed a…

We report on implementations of online homework systems at two moderately-sized state universities. These implementations were created with the intention of supporting student engagement outside of the classroom by mimicking the attempt-feedback-reattempt sequence of events which often occurs in a teacher's presence. Evidence is presented which…

The surprising success of Live Homework Help, a product of Tutor.com unknown to libraries before 2001, is in very large part owing to the company's effort to understand library funding and help libraries tap into all kinds of potential funding sources. The story is a model for partnerships between other companies and libraries. For the people of…

At Dartmouth College, the author teaches a course called "Security and Privacy." Its early position in the overall computer science curriculum means the course needs to be introductory, and the author can't assume the students possess an extensive computer science background. These constraints leave the author with a challenge: to construct…

This article links student and family characteristics, along with perceived purposes for doing homework, to homework emotion management as reported by 205 high school students in grades 9-10. The results revealed that adolescents' management of their emotions was not related to grade level and amount of parental education. However, girls and…

This article describes how the use of interactive molecular graphics makes a unique and important contribution to student learning of biochemistry and molecular biology at any level. These authors developed the concept of the kinemage (from "kinetic image"), a different way of organizing computer graphics that is aimed explicitly at the…

A study released last fall by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, showed that, contrary to what many observers suspected, the amount of time spent on homework has not increased for children in the upper-middle grades. But it has jumped significantly for 6-to 8-years-olds, which would include…

Curriculum mapping has evolved as an invaluable communication, planning, and teaching tool. Using this dynamic method, educators can document what is being taught, what students are learning, how well they are learning, and how closely the curriculum reflects local and national standards. This lively, easy-to-use resource is a cohesive and…

Reliability methodology needs to evolve as validity has done into an argument supported by theory and empirical evidence. Nowhere is the inadequacy of current methods more visible than in classroom assessment. Reliability arguments would also permit additional methodologies for evidencing reliability in classrooms. It would liberalize methodology…

This paper uses a multi-level model to identify course variables that affect the relationship between study activities and achievement. Data on course characteristics were collected from 12 high school biology classes, and study activity and achievement measures were collected from 136 students enrolled in these classes. The results indicate that…

This poster provides a parent checklist for helping children with homework. There are three components to the checklist: (1) "Make Sure Your Child Has" includes items regarding basic necessities such as a regular time each day for homework and organization aids; (2) "Questions to Ask Your Child" contains nine questions,…

This study compared the attitudes of minority students with learning disabilities and their parents to both student-centered homework and teacher-directed homework assignments. An adapted alternating treatments design was used to compare the return rates between traditional teacher-directed homework and student-centered assignments with 40…

This study examined achievement differences between algebra students taught with the non-traditional textbook developed by Saxon and those taught with a "traditional" textbook by Dolciani. Student absences, rate of turning in homework, and ability level were considered, as well as teachers' comments. One Algebra I section in each of…