Virtual reality environments are becoming increasingly popular as educational tools, but it remains unclear when these environments enhance learning or when they are a distraction from the learning process. We compared two different methods for teaching ecological concepts about the rocky intertidal zone by comparing an experimental (virtual)…

A pilot study was conducted in a regional university setting to promote awareness of the value of affective teaching and learning amongst staff and students. Academic staff and students from diverse disciplines at University of South Australia's (UniSA) Centre for Regional Engagement (CRE) were recruited to the study. The research investigated…

Emotions, feelings, and values are important in an individual's well being. If pupils possess quality attitudes, the chances are that cognitive objectives will be achieved well, as much as the individual can be capable of doing. The teacher needs to emphasize affective objectives in reading instruction. Learning opportunities to achieve objectives…

To determine the effects of a permissive, nonpunitive learning climate on the affective and cognitive learning of black freshmen English students, 30 black freshmen English students were grouped heterogeneously in a writing laboroatory at Hampton Institute during the 1971-72 academic year. Three hypotheses were tested: (1) communication is a…

The central problem that American education poses for society is that the enterprise is appreciably underproductive when judged against standards and requirements of the postindustrial era. This generic problem will not be appreciably ameliorated until the instructional system design (ISD) process is better understood and explicated and then made…

A performance objective is a description of an observable task to be performed by a learner to demonstrate that he has learned something. Performance goals stated clearly in terms of observable student performance can be used to improve educational methods. Because it is relatively difficult to construct indirect objectives that will…

An investigation was conducted to examine the relationship between goal-setting behavior and the Conceptual Level Model (CLM), an interactive theory of development that considers progression or growth to be determined both by the learner's present developmental stage and by the environment he experiences. Conceptual Level (CL) is an index of…

The ecological concepts of activity structure and activity segments were central to this examination of observational data attained in a three-week period from 18 fifth-grade math classes and 17 fifth-grade social studies classes in school districts in the greater Chicago region. Classroom observations were conducted by pairs of observers: one…

A literature review is summarized on the effects of educational and environmental factors on student achievement. Environmental factors include background and community influences, such as social, economic, racial, educational and achievement levels; home environment; and qualities of students, such as academic readiness, motivation, and social…

In a 6-month study of a small private school (Fielding) in central Virginia, seven participants in a curriculum practicum tested a research strategy for investigating the knowledge, skills, and attitudes fostered by a school's environment. Given the subjectivity of environmental influences, the team rejected scrupulous data collection to…

The design of computer-­based learning environments has undergone a paradigm shift; moving students away from instruction that was considered to promote technical rationality grounded in objectivism, to the application of computers to create cognitive tools utilized in constructivist environments. The goal of the resulting computer-­based learning…

The use of an alternative methodology to study transfer of learning in clinical instruction during medical school was investigated. The environment in which clinical instruction takes place was examined, after which hypotheses were proposed and tested in a quasi-experimental design. The first phase of the study, an ethnographic analysis of the…

The nature of the clinical teaching and learning process in three disciplines of a clinical clerkship program was examined. The nature of student learning, the organization of students' time, and the role of various individuals were investigated across the disciplines, and the relationships among the various types of learning were explored.…

This document contains papers and proceedings from a colloquium in May, 1978, on citizen education objectives. The first paper, by Judith V. Torney, stresses the need to relate global concepts to citizenship and to objectives for citizen education. Torney also suggests that a citizenship education program should consider average ages at which…

The booklet provides a framework to guide development of curriculum components of the Maine Studies Curriculum Project. Funded in 1976 by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in response to a section of Maine School Law, the project aims to develop and test a K-12 curriculum, accompanying instructional resources, and a teacher education…