For some time a central issue has occupied early science education discussions--primary student classroom experiences and the resulting attitudes towards science. This has in part been linked to generalist teachers' own knowledge of science topics and pedagogical confidence. Recent research in cognitive development has examined the role of…

This paper reports a series of research studies on the use of automated writing evaluation (awe) in secondary and university settings in China. The secondary school study featured the use of awe in six intact classes of 268 senior high school students for one academic year. The university study group comprised 460 students from five universities…

This article describes a research study that determined the depth of vocabulary knowledge of 28 intermediate ESL learners. The study was carried out with Bricklayer, a vocabulary assessment tool for L2 English which tested the ESL learners on 72 words. Two post-tests collected evidence for concurrent validity. A semantic distance test captured…

The unpreparedness of some regular classroom teachers of English Language Learners (ELLS) to provide appropriate writing feedback and receive improved professional development to combat low student progress have resulted in researcher debate about how and why teachers provide feedback. Some teachers have become frustrated with writing feedback as…

In the current study, the researcher investigated if there was a significant difference in Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) reading scale scores between English as a Second Language students who were instructed using the System 44 program and students who were instructed in a more traditional setting. The current study…

The WISE Report from the Clayton Christensen Institute explores perspectives on the blended learning process through the institute's comprehensive surveys of the three countries. This report touches on a number of school-based efforts to implement educational technology, focusing on whether, and how, a sample of brick-and-mortar schools in Brazil,…

The purpose of this study was to determine what life is like for foster youth pursuing postsecondary education. At a time when few foster youth are pursuing and completing higher education, this study attempted to gain an understanding from foster youth about 1) the reason(s) for their success in pursuing postsecondary education, 2) how they were…

At thousands of schools and universities, years of economic troubles have led to repeated budget cuts. The reductions typically fall disproportionately on maintenance departments, where cuts are viewed as less critical than those that directly affect classroom instruction. And so nearly every facility manager at an education institution faces a…

A new collaborative capstone model is presented that consists of three synergistic elements: (1) a capstone course component; (2) a business component; and (3) an advanced technical course component geared towards enhancing the student capstone learning experience. The model was fully implemented at Bentley University in spring 2012 with…

Diagnostic classification models (aka cognitive or skills diagnosis models) have shown great promise for evaluating mastery on a multidimensional profile of skills as assessed through examinee responses, but continued development and application of these models has been hindered by a lack of readily available software. In this article we…

This article is a survey of program visualization systems intended for teaching beginners about the runtime behavior of computer programs. Our focus is on generic systems that are capable of illustrating many kinds of programs and behaviors. We inclusively describe such systems from the last three decades and review findings from their empirical…

If one asks educators about online resources that make their lives easier or make a difference with instruction, they will likely all respond passionately with some site, tool or app and a story about how it works. This year, the authors set out to include 13 tech resources they find valuable in their work or in work with others. They feel these…

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) skills are essential to successfully deal with environments that change dynamically and involve a large number of interconnected and partially unknown causal influences. The increasing importance of such skills in the 21st century requires appropriate assessment and intervention methods, which in turn rely on adequate…

The present study investigated the problem-solving performance of 101 university students and their interactions with a computer modeling tool in order to solve a complex problem. Based on their performance on the hidden figures test, students were assigned to three groups of field-dependent (FD), field-mixed (FM), and field-independent (FI)…

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of firm strategies and corporate performance on enterprise software market growth in emerging regions. The emerging regions of Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America, currently represent smaller overall markets for software vendors, but exhibit high growth…