This book examines how common e-learning technologies open up compelling, if limited, experiential spaces for users, similar to the imaginary worlds opened up by works of fiction. However, these experiential worlds are markedly different from the "real" world of physical objects and embodied relations. This book shows these differences to be of…

For several years leading up to 2008, workforce data painted a picture of an imminent crisis in the healthcare workforce, with demand for registered nurses far exceeding supply. The economic recession has provided a temporary reprieve, as older nurses postponed retirement and hospitals instituted hiring freezes. However, economists believe that as…

Wayfinding is a kind of spatial riddle that people encounter almost daily. Although it has been well documented that wayfinding elements--namely, environmental cues, people and time--significantly influence wayfinding, there has been little work done to examine the effectiveness of those influences. In particular, the notion of wayfindingly…

Virtual teams are becoming commonplace in business today so our business school students should have experience in effectively working in virtual teams. Based on a month-long virtual team project conducted by the authors between classes in South Africa and the United States, this paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of using global…

This paper describes the use of advanced computer technology in an innovative educational leadership program. This program integrates full-motion video scenarios that simulate the leadership challenges typically faced by principals over the course of a full school year. These scenarios require decisions that are then coupled to consequences and…

Recently, researchers have investigated differences in decision making based on description and experience. We address the issue of when experience-based judgments of probability are more accurate than are those based on description. If description is well understood ("transparent") and experience is misleading ("wicked"), it…

The HANDS (Helping Autism-diagnosed teenagers Navigate and Develop Socially) research project involves the creation of an e-learning toolset that can be used to develop individualized tools to support the social development of teenagers with an autism diagnosis. The e-learning toolset is based on ideas from persuasive technology. This paper…

Virtual worlds are an emerging technology in computer-assisted learning. Due to the novelty of these new learning spaces, little research has been done on the use or the effects on students learning foreign languages. This research looks at how the use of the virtual world Second Life affects the motivation of students in an undergraduate Spanish…

Constructing a representation in which students express their domain understanding can help them improve their knowledge. Many different representational formats can be used to express one's domain understanding (e.g., concept maps, textual summaries, mathematical equations). The format can direct students' attention to specific aspects of the…

This article outlines the Idea Factory exercise, an interactive exercise designed to help participants examine group, individual, and organizational factors that affect intergroup conflict. Specific emphasis is placed on exploring the relationship between intra- and intergroup dynamics and identifying managerial practices that foster effective…

Effectively teaching the concepts of osmosis to college-level students is a major obstacle in biological education. Therefore, a novel computer model is presented that allows students to observe the random nature of particle motion simultaneously with the seemingly directed net flow of water across a semipermeable membrane during osmotic…

Research into students' understanding of complex systems typically ignores young children because of misinterpretations of young children's competencies. Furthermore, studies that do recognize young children's competencies tend to focus on what children can do in isolation. As an alternative, we propose an approach to designing for young children…

The most common question the author's students ask is, "When will I ever use this in real life?" To address this question in her geometry classes, the author sought to create a project that would incorporate a real-world business situation with their lesson series on the surface area and volume of three-dimensional objects--specifically, prisms,…

The process-component approach has become quite popular for examining many psychological concepts. A typical example is the model with internal restrictions on item difficulty (MIRID) described by Butter (1994) and Butter, De Boeck, and Verhelst (1998). This study proposes a hierarchical generalized random-situation random-weight MIRID. The…

This study elaborates the Rasch differential item functioning (DIF) model formulation under the marginal maximum likelihood estimation context. Also, the Rasch DIF model performance was examined and compared with the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) procedure in small sample and short test length conditions through simulations. The theoretically known…