Within the scope of the research the following question has been addressed: "Is there a statistically significant difference in students' thinking styles according to (a) gender, (b) academic discipline and (c) grade, between the beginning and the end of an academic semester?" Purpose of the study is to reveal the differentiation…

The purpose of the study is to investigate teachers' and students' considerations, preferences, attitudes and awareness related to using Interactive Whiteboards in 7-12 grades and different courses, and learning. 1013 students from elementary and secondary schools and 65 teachers from different schools were selected to take questionnaire for…

This study is to investigate whether "My Class Activities" (MCA; Gentry & Gable, 2001a), an instrument developed to measure students' perceptions of their classroom activities, yields valid data when used with elementary students in China after translation into Chinese. The four factors measured by the instrument (Interest,…

Teaching ecosystem services provides an ideal opportunity to use inquiry-based learning to help students make connections between ecological, geological, and social systems. The idea of ecosystem services, or the benefits nature provides to society, has emerged as a key concept in a host of environmental fields and is just beginning to gain…

As online learning is becoming more deeply entrenched in higher education, many institutions are designing professional development activities aimed at helping faculty improve their online teaching. The focus of this descriptive study was on identifying the preferences faculty who teach online have regarding how they want to learn about new…

This study used the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) to examine the extent to which a game, Land Science, afforded identity change opportunities as exploration of science identities, science content knowledge, science confidence, action possibilities, and interest/valuing in an intentional manner. Analysis of the game and existing…

Students on a first year undergraduate economics module were given the choice of when to sit their first assessment in the subject in order to determine both preferences over assessment timing, and the impact of timing on performance. Clear preferences of having this option were shown (only 2% of students stated to be indifferent) with those more…

The physics education research community has produced a wealth of knowledge about effective teaching and learning of college level physics. Based on this knowledge, many research-proven instructional strategies and teaching materials have been developed and are currently available to instructors. Unfortunately, these intensive research and…

Corrective feedback has always been popular in English as a foreign language (EFL) settings and its effectiveness in language learning has been widely debated. An increasing number of second language acquisition studies (SLA) indicate that there is a dilemma in the effectiveness of corrective feedback in terms of EFL instructors' and learners'…

In an attempt to survive in the highly competitive terrain of academic publications, Portuguese humanities and social science professors are increasingly giving up writing their papers in Portuguese, and, instead, they now opt to write in English, today's scientific default language. This paper aims to portray the current panorama of humanities…

As we strive to provide quality and sustainable online learning experiences, we must frame instructional design decisions around learners' current needs and interaction with technology. This article explores the implications of technology transience on instructional design. We provide numerous examples of programs assuming a purposeful approach to…

Mastery motivation is an important developmental construct that has implications for development across the lifespan. Research to date has focused predominantly on infants and children, with the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ) being the most widely used measure of mastery motivation. This article reports on the development and initial…

First-year students' communication abilities are critical to succeeding in college and interacting professionally with faculty, student affairs staff, and administrators. The purpose of this exploratory study is to better understand how introductory-level college students, particularly those born since 1990, define competent communication in the…

Problem solving and collaborative communication are among the key 21st century skills educators want students to develop. This paper presents results from a study of the collaborative work patterns of 133 participants from a university level course designed to develop transferable problem-solving skills. Most of the class time in this course was…

A new virtual reality task was employed which uses preference for interpersonal distance to social stimuli to examine social motivation and emotion perception in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Nineteen high function children with higher functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD) and 23 age, gender, and IQ matched children with typical…