Research often focuses on how students fail to meet college expectations, but it rarely asks how colleges fail to meet students' expectations. This study examines students' expectations of college and their institutional confidence--their level of certainty that college will meet their expectations. Drawing on 65 pilot interviews and a survey of…

Decisions about instruction, research, or policy often require the interpretation of student assessment scores. Increasingly, attitudinal variables are included in an assessment strategy, and it is important to ensure that interpretations of students' attitudinal status are based on instrument scores that apply similarly for diverse students. In…

Civic engagement is an important marker of thriving among adolescents, and more research is needed that clarifies the ecological assets (positive supports across settings) that foster youth civic engagement. Simultaneously modeling associations between multiple ecological assets and civic behaviors can provide a nuanced view of the way…

Students' attitudes and approaches to physics problem solving can impact how well they learn physics and how successful they are in solving physics problems. Prior research in the U.S. using a validated Attitude and Approaches to Problem Solving (AAPS) survey suggests that there are major differences between students in introductory physics and…

Recently identified as an academic "achievement emotion", boredom has long been implicated as a factor contributing adversely to student attainment across a diverse range of formal educational settings. Despite this, the study of boredom, particularly among students in higher education, remains a relatively neglected and underdeveloped…

The purpose of the current study is to describe beliefs, perceived barriers and teaching strategy preference of elementary teachers with respect to education for sustainable development. The sample of research survey consisted of 211 elementary teachers who are also participant of projects on environmental education entitled Green Pack and…

Through the transformation of undergraduate STEM courses, the Colorado Learning Assistant Program recruits and prepares talented STEM majors for careers in teaching by providing them with early, sustained teaching experiences. The research reported here compares teaching practices of K-12 teachers who served as learning assistants (LAs) as…

Cognitive styles have been regarded as a crucial factor that affects the effectiveness of web-based learning (WBL). Previous research indicated that educational settings that match with students' cognitive styles can enhance students' learning performance, which is, however, linked to their emotion. Various physiological signals can be applied to…

There are a limited number of studies about the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in higher education, specifically in teacher education. This study investigated pre-service teachers' perceptions of IWBs. The pre-service teachers involved in the study were studying in nine different teacher training programs. To achieve this goal, a…

This article describes the pilot study of an informal assessment, the "Student Transition Questionnaire" (STQ). The STQ is a 38-item assessment designed to elicit student perspectives on transition-related topics. In this mixed-methods study, we piloted the STQ with 186 participants, and then conducted focus groups with various…

Objective: Psychometric details of the Parental Press for Academic Achievement and Postsecondary Planning Scale (PPS), developed by Chicago Consortium of Chicago School Research, are scarce. The purpose of this study was to reexamine the properties of this 7-item measure. Method: The study utilized cross-sectional, self-reported data from 100…

There have been many attempts over the last five decades to measure students' attitudes towards school science. Many of these studies investigated attitudes towards limited aspects of science and utilized large numbers of items to draw snapshot summaries of the educational landscape. An understanding of attitudes towards science, and how these…

The aim of this study is to determine the perceptions of preschool teachers regarding critical multicultural education competencies. The study is based on "Critical Multicultural Education Competency Model." The sample of this descriptive research consists of 120 teachers employed at 56 kindergartens and 24 independent nursery classes in…

This paper describes the entire methodology for the development of a scale to measure Attitude towards Open Educational Resources (ATOER). Traditionally, it is observed that some teachers are more willing to share their work than others, indicating the need to understand teachers' psychological and behavioural determinants that influence use of…

The middle level years continue to be of significant concern to educational stakeholders, policymakers, theorists, and researchers. Chief among this concern is the degree to which middle level students adapt to the middle level climate and eventually begin to feel attached to or a sense of belonging at their school. The research literature has…