A seventh-grade teacher compared three current delivery systems associated with learning style and multiple intelligences: Beatrice McCarthy's "4MAT," Kathleen Butler's "The Learner's Dimension," and Carolyn Mamchur's "Cognitive Type Theory and Learning Style." All have distinct advantages and disadvantages. Gardner's…

Moving beyond question of whether on-line education is beneficial or harmful, explores conditions under which one or another of six instructional methods lecture, collaborative learning, experiential learning, learning contracts, televised courses, and Web-based learning work best. Finds specific methods more appropriate for some subject matters,…

Reports on two studies. The first, a brain-imaging study evaluating brain-processing differences between high- and low- performing middle-school students attempting a spatial visualization task, establishes the connection between brain-processing patterns and task-learning efficiency. The second study, involving 33 women graduate education majors,…

Background: Frith and Happe (1994) describe central coherence (CC) as the normal tendency to integrate individual elements into a coherent whole, a cognitive style which varies in the general population. Individuals with autism are at the extreme (weak) end of the continuum of coherence. There has been debate over whether CC is independent from…

Individual differences have been identified as important factors that might have significant impact on students' learning. This study investigated the effect of student's cognitive styles, achievement motivation, prior knowledge, and attitudes on student's achievement in web-based learning. A web-based course was designed for second year…

The purpose of this issue of "New Directions for Evaluation" is to examine, comparatively, the practical application of theorists' approaches to evaluation by examining four evaluations of the same case. The thought is that when asked to evaluate the same program (holding the case constant), the practical distinctions between theorists' approaches…

This study profiled the preferred productivity and learning style preferences of 63 off-campus and 43 on-campus distance education students enrolled at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, during Spring 1995. Using the Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS), it found no overall differences between the productivity and…

To solve the twin problems of a projected shortfall of science workers and general science illiteracy in the United States, many educators have proposed a massive restructuring of the curriculum and pedagogy of elementary and secondary school science. This resarch suggests that science eudcators focus on such issues as course design, teaching and…

The relationship between secondary school professional staff perceptions of school climate and their respective personalities is examined in this study. The Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire-Rutgers Secondary (OCDQ-RS) and the Heath Typology Assessment Instrument (HTAI) were administered to 232 secondary teachers to assess…

A review of the literature on strategies used by students to learn a second language suggests that the research can offer important insights into teaching learners who do not naturally arrive at successful learning strategies. Raising students' consciousness to the options for language learning is seen as crucial. It is also proposed that learner…

While individualized learning strategies typically provide large amounts of instructional support, they also reply heavily on learner judgement to determine the amount of support required to achieve an objective. Frequently, these strategies result in high achievers selecting too much support and low achievers selecting too little. Interest in…

Research involving eye movement monitoring can help in understanding the nature of the mental processes involved in reading, how these develop as one learns to read, and what processing strategies or characteristics are more common in those children who fail to show normal progress in learning to read. First, eye movement records show that the…

In considering the questions of what sense teachers make of their professional education and what they learn during teacher preparation, two case studies are presented, based on an analysis of interviews across the first year of teacher preparation. The first student was enrolled in an academic-learning program which emphasized the importance of…

This paper reviews several studies on aptitude treatment interaction, the interaction between the learners' individual differences and methods of instruction. Specifically, it investigates the relationship between previous knowledge, including previously held misconceptions, and instructional methods. It is suggested that significant interactions…

This paper discusses the relationship between individual differences and educational practices by reviewing the historical models of teaching and past research on learner characteristics. The mental testing movement is reviewed in terms of the emergence of aptitude as a measurable concept. Learner motivation is also discussed along with the…