In this experiment designed to trace the development of rivalry in Anglo American and rural Mexican children, rivalry (behavior intended to lower the outcomes of a peer) was measured by 4 choice conditions wherein the rivalrous alternative in all conditions was the choice that left fewer rewards (marbles) to the chooser's peer. After all choices…

Students set in their ways are usually reluctant, as a general rule, to deal with open-ended investigative scenarios. In order to acquaint the student with the physical method and philosophical thought process of the discipline, the tone of the course must be set early on. The present study was conducted to develop scenarios and microbial model…

The Center for Business Information and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University (Georgia) tested desktop videoconferencing as a means to deliver reference services, including consultation, documentation, training, and sharing of CD-ROM databases. Provides a brief overview of the technology, describes project beta testing, and discusses…

The 9 articles of this theme issue stem from a project on alcohol and drug abuse that involved 14 projects, 10 of which began with randomized clinical trials. These papers describe implementation problems associated with experimentation in field research and the focus on ensuring internal validity. (SLD)

Presents an activity in which students make a simulated solar panel to learn about the principles behind energy production using solar panels. Provides information about how solar panels function to produce energy. (MCO)

Describes an experiment to determine which of four objects, hollow cylinders, solid cylinders, hollow balls, and solid balls, will reach the bottom of an inclined plane first when released simultaneously. Provides solutions to the problem and supplementary exercises. (MDH)

The function of self-injurious behavior (SIB) by an adult with severe mental retardation was analyzed via descriptive and experimental analysis methodologies. Results indicated that SIB occurred more often when the participant was presented with nonpreferred novel activities. Intervention resulted in the use of negation to terminate the…

A major cause of the difficulty undergraduate mathematics majors have with the transition from elementary to advanced mathematics courses is that advanced courses require students to understand how mathematics is created. Describes a course whose main purpose is to introduce students to the creative process in mathematics. The course consists of…

Telling stories can be an effective way of introducing science concepts. This article provides an annotated bibliography of fiction and nonfiction books for K-12 students and adults on static electricity, surface tension, bubbles, chromatography, slugs and other creatures, plants, physical and chemical change, strength of shapes, collections of…

Reviews the impact of legislation on animal experimentation that has been in effect since 1876 in Great Britain. Focuses on the impact of these laws on the teaching of practical physiology to undergraduate students. Contains 26 references. (DDR)

Fourth-grade students who participated in a yearlong, whole-class teaching experiment not only reconceptualized natural numbers but also generated flexible solution strategies to perform numerical computations mentally and in writing. Students' reconceptualization of number was mediated by their perceived resemblance between the physical action of…

This study investigated the effectiveness of portfolios as an instructional technique to reduce errors associated with test scoring by graduate students. Both the control and experimental conditions consisted of a lecture and demonstration on proper administration and scoring followed by a discussion. The experimental condition also required…

At the end of a lecturing period examinations are used to take a snapshot of the level of knowledge of a student. It is essential that this snapshot be taken at the right moment. Particularly when a student fails, it is important to make sure that it is because his level of knowledge is not adequate, not because, for example, he had a severe…

Three experiments assessed the contributions of age-of-acquisition (AoA) and frequency to visual word recognition. Three databases were created from electronic journals in chemistry, psychology and geology in order to identify technical words that are extremely frequent in each discipline but acquired late in life. In Experiment 1, psychologists…

Already at a very young age, children experience the wide applicability and intrinsic simplicity of linear/proportional relations. In primary and secondary school mathematics education, moreover, extensive attention is paid to this type of relations. In the long run, students develop the misbelief that each relation can be quantified as…