It is an established fact that in the United States there is a great need to improve the scientific literacy of undergraduate students, especially those who are nonscience majors. Data presented herein suggest that using simple art concepts can assist nonscience majors in better appreciating scientific facts related to chemistry. However, it is…

Traditional lectures have come under increasing criticism as research indicates lectures may be less effective in achieving learning outcomes than other teaching methods. Student engagement and success can potentially be improved by changing traditional lectures to instructional methods using active learning techniques. Active learning refers to…

The five characteristics that influence new product rate of adoption are routinely covered in the Principles of Marketing course. Any particular marketing concept such as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility, and communicability may not capture interest or engagement among students who take the course as a graduation…

Backchannel technology can be used to allow students in large lecture courses to communicate with each other and the instructor during the delivery of lecture content and class discussions. It can also be utilized by instructors to capture, summarize, and integrate student questions, ideas, and needs into course content both immediately and…

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in Spain has increased the number of degrees taught through English, although secondary schools do not ensure an appropriate set of linguistic skills for bilingual degrees. A holistic, accountable model for Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-supported learning can give students the adequate…

We share results from a quasi-experimental study in which we compared achievement between traditional lecture-based and computer-based sections of college algebra on a common multiple choice exam as well as performance on problem solving items. Students in the computer-based group performed better on the final exam and were also more likely to…

Active learning is based on self-directed and autonomous teaching methods, whereas passive learning is grounded in instructor taught lectures. An animal physiology course was studied over a two-year period (Year 1, n = 42 students; Year 2, n = 30 students) to determine the effects of student-led seminar (andragogical) and lecture (pedagogical)…

Many different versions of Problem-based Learning (PBL) are used today. To be consistent in evaluating the effectiveness of PBL, the focus in this paper is on what Howard Barrows called authentic PBL (aPBL). In aPBL students are empowered with the learning process; key distinguishing features are that the students teach each other the new…

In this study, we used targeted active-learning activities to help students improve their ways of reasoning about carbon flow in ecosystems. The results of a validated ecology conceptual inventory (diagnostic question clusters [DQCs]) provided us with information about students' understanding of and reasoning about transformation of inorganic and…

Conventional lecture approaches view the process as a teacher-led method of imparting knowledge ("presentation" lecture), whereas modern theories suggest that the teaching methods employed should aim to inspire the student to learn rather than simply provide them with knowledge ("performance" lecture). The aim of the current…

A comparison was made between students' overall performance, as measured by overall grade, in different teaching and learning protocols: (1) traditional textbook and lecture along with standard examinations; (2) lectures with online augmentation and PowerPoint lecture notes along with standard examinations; (3) similar to "(2)" but with…

This article compares the effects of listening and reading on the incidental acquisition and retention of vocabulary. Two hundred thirty students participated in the study: They either (a) read three academic texts, (b) watched three lectures, or (c) received no input at all and just completed the vocabulary measures. This study also assessed and…

Stress management and coping techniques are not only relevant in many psychology courses but also personally relevant for undergraduate students. In this article, the authors describe an activity designed to provide students with practice evaluating and challenging negative self-talk. Students responded to scenarios individually, were paired with…

This paper explores the relevance to industry's needs of operations management (OM) teaching in higher education, by researching the content of OM modules delivered by UK academics and comparing the results of this research with the views of business practitioners having had first-hand experience of OM teaching on MBA programmes. To determine…

More than 45,000 international students are now studying for bachelor programs in The Netherlands. The number of Asian students increased dramatically in the past decade. The current research aims at examining the differences between Western European and Asian students' perceptual learning styles, and exploring the relationships between students'…