This paper presents the results of a study on the influence of blackboard assistance and lecturer's initiative on student's achievements (measured via quality of individualised surfboards). In addition it looks at student attitudes to project related issues in technology education, derived from the pre-test and post-test experiments and surveys.…

The paper deals with the facts obtained from TIMSS 2003 (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). This international comparative study, which includes 47 participant countries worldwide, explores dependence between eighth grade students' achievement in the areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and geography, and basic…

This study compares the views of teachers and professional development facilitators about effective professional development (PD). We analyzed interviews with 72 teacher participants and 23 PD facilitators involved in nine science and mathematics PD projects. The teachers' themes for characterizing effective PD included classroom application,…

The present study compares the effects of the cooperative jigsaw II method and traditional teacher-centred teaching method on improving vocabulary knowledge and active-passive voice in English as a foreign language for engineering students and the students' attitudes towards learning English. Jigsaw is a cooperative learning model that involves…

This study explores the relative effectiveness of in class online discussion and face to face, tutor led discussion in preservice teachers' recall of concepts. Two groups of preservice teachers, who engaged in different discussion modes, were tested two weeks later on how many concepts they could recall. No significant difference in the recall…

This study investigated the cross-cultural differences in American and Finnish elementary teachers' evaluations of their classroom teaching behaviors. The self-evaluation instrument developed for the study was administered to 167 American elementary teachers from Indiana and Texas and to 172 Finnish teachers (also elementary) from two different…

This study, conducted at the University of Memphis (Tennessee), compared the effects of a self-paced method of instruction on the attitudes and perceptions of students enrolled in an undergraduate statistics course with those of a comparable group of students taking statistics in a traditional lecture setting. The non-traditional course used a…

A comparative study examined the literacy habits and attitudes of children in two sixth-grade classrooms in Hawaii, one with a learning-centered instructional approach and the other with a traditional transmission instructional approach. The majority of the 26 students in the learning-centered classroom and the 24 students in the traditional…

This project introduces a syllabus for studying comparative politics among Canada, Pakistan, and Japan. Students learn that comparative politics provides an understanding of how different political systems operate and the importance of culture in understanding politics. Three functions are addressed in the course: system functions, process…

A study explored the vocabulary development available in a variety of current preschoolers' television shows. A quantitative analysis of seven programs on two networks (PBS and Nickelodeon) was undertaken over a total viewing time of 40 hours; a qualitative analysis of techniques used to present vocabulary was also documented for these shows.…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of cooperative learning on the attitude and achievement of teachers enrolled in a graduate statistics course. Thirty students received instruction from a faculty member fully trained in cooperative learning methodology. A nine-item survey was administered at the conclusion of the course.…

This paper examined the effects of the use of role playing in foreign language instruction by applying this instructional method in two elementary Chinese courses at Memphis State University during the 1991-92 academic year. Role playing was used in daily classroom activities and in midterm and final oral examinations. The results of this…

A study was conducted at a large, state-supported college in the Northeast to establish a mechanism by which a popular software package, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), could be used in psychology program statistics courses in such a way that no prior computer expertise would be needed on the part of the faculty or the…

This study investigated the effects of interface tools and learner cognitive styles on performance in searches for information within a hypermedia database. The subjects, 75 students in a university English as a Second Language (ESL) program, were blocked for field dependence and assigned to four treatments which differed by the search tool…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the formal teaching of grammatical rules would affect the writing quality of sixth graders. Comparison was made between students of two University Lab Schools located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The study was limited to the observation of written expression, because of limited…