Good quality instruction in the early years of education has a positive impact in helping newcomers in universities and colleges to adapt to the new environment. This concept is widely applied in contemporary higher education because of the numerous benefits it offers to the students and the instructors. It, is not therefore, subject to the…

Concerns about the ability of post-secondary students to read scholarly materials are well documented in the literature. A key aspect of reading at the deeper level expected of these students is connecting new information to prior knowledge. This study is based on an activity where students were explicitly required to make such connections as part…

Incidental word learning is influenced by context, task, and reader characteristics. The present study aimed to determine the contribution and interactions of these factors for fifth-grade students. The focus was on contextual differences: words' meanings are inferred from local or global contexts. This effect was tested as a function of task: gap…

The question addressed in this paper is: what does a knowledge claim consist of in the context of the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)? The research comprises a case study of RPL applicants' entry into a postgraduate diploma (a fourth-year programme) in project management. The focus is on the knowledge claims made as part of the RPL application…

This paper is a reflection, on the basis of empirical research conducted in Italy, on theoretical, methodological and systemic-organisational aspects linked to the recognition and validation of the prior learning acquired by adult learners or workers who decide to enrol at university at a later stage in their lives. The interest in this research…

The purpose of the study was to gain an understanding of the kinds of prior knowledge students bring with them from high school as it relates to the conventions of writing that they are expected to follow in ARTS 1110 Introduction to University. The research questions were "Can first-year students taking the Arts 1110 Introduction to…

This study sought to determine if there is a relationship between students' scores on the eighth-grade Indiana State Test of Education Progress Plus (ISTEP+) exam and success on Indiana's Algebra End-of-Course Assessment (ECA). Additionally, it sought to determine if algebra success could be significantly predicted by the achievement in one or…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between knowledge monitoring and motivation as defined by self-efficacy and goal orientations. A path model was proposed to hypothesize the causal relations among predictors of the students' total score in the Educational Psychology course. The sample consisted of undergraduate students…

In this study, we examine the effect of background knowledge and local cohesion on learning from texts. The study is based on construction-integration model. Participants were 176 undergraduate students who read a Computer Science text. Half of the participants read a text of maximum local cohesion and the other a text of minimum local cohesion.…

Students were involved in the curriculum design of a statistics course. They completed a pre-assessment of their confidence and skills using quantitative methods and statistics. Scores were aggregated, and anonymous data were shown on the first night of class. Using these data, the course was designed, demonstrating evidence-based instructional…

For schools to be successful in providing current and future students with the right support to rise to the level of expectations embodied by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS 2010), school librarians must lead the way to improving school environments using effective, theory-based design of problem-based instruction that includes acquisition…

The study investigated whether activation of inaccurate prior knowledge before study contributes to primary-school children's commission errors and overconfidence in these errors when learning new concepts. Findings indicate that inaccurate prior knowledge affects children's learning and calibration. The level of children's judgments of learning…

This article presents a review of 29 empirical studies to identify the main foci of research on student teachers' identity, the methodologies used and their major findings. The reviewed studies were found to investigate four broad factors: the contribution of: (1) reflective activities, (2) learning communities, (3) context and (4) (prior)…

The development of research skills and scientific reasoning underpins the mission of graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, yet our understanding of this process is mainly drawn from self-report and faculty survey data. In this study, we empirically investigate the pattern of research skill…

People learn from prior experiences. We first learn how to use a spoon and then know how to use a different size of spoon. We first learn how to sew and then learn how to embroider. Transferring knowledge from one situation to another related situation often increases the speed of learning. This observation is relevant to human learning, as well…