At an age marked by the emergence of new literacies, vast technological developments, and social networking practices, language is currently approached from a pragmatic perspective that recognises its functional use to meet realistic communicative goals. Taking this into account, the present study sought to identify the functional writing skills…

The purpose of this narrative research is to examine cultural diversity among teacher candidates. A secondary purpose is to offer a pedagogical tool for teacher educators to use with their teacher candidates to help them develop a critical consciousness in their encounters with diverse students and their reflections on their own cultural…

This qualitative study examined elementary and middle school students' perceptions of assessment. Individual interviews were conducted with 64 students, with questions focused on their emotional reactions and thinking about classroom and large-scale assessment as related to goal orientation, self-regulation, attributions, and self-efficacy.…

It has been reported (Aagaard & Skidmore, 2004; Sikorski et al., 2002) that only a minority of college students actually read the course textbook in preparation for examinations. Although professors widely lament students' propensity to ignore the carefully chosen textbooks, research specifically investigating why this phenomenon occurs is…