Responses from 41 of 60 Iowa secondary agriculture teachers and 464 11th- and 12th-grade students indicated both teachers and students had high perceptions of sustainable agriculture and its impact on the environment. Both groups felt the need to learn more about it. (SK)

Investigated the relative effects of developmental level and domain-specific knowledge on 4- to 9-year-olds' ability to identify and make similarity decisions about objects based on haptic or tactile information. Found that older children explored models more exhaustively, found more differentiating features, and made fewer errors than younger…

Studied the extent to which experiences designed to help preservice teachers take advantage of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute moved them to acquire deeper knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement. Preservice teachers were from teacher education programs that differed with respect to situated activity, discourse communities, and authentic…

Introduces this special issue topic by asserting that empirically powerful and theoretically guided educational research needs to be designed with the teacher in mind. Provides rationale for research focus on real-world knowledge and reasoning, and reasons for selecting research projects on inductive reasoning, mathematical reasoning, map skills,…

Surveyed adolescent boys who had participated in a brief outreach program to high school health education classes designed to increase boys' knowledge about and improve their attitudes toward testicular self-examination (TSE) and early cancer detection. Results indicated that the 1-hour outreach improved students' knowledge and attitudes regarding…

Studied how and why persuasion occurs, examining the processing of two articles using topic-specific measures of belief. Results from 37 undergraduates, 25 graduate students, and 20 faculty members show that readers' perceptions of their knowledge play a more significant role in persuasion outcomes than the knowledge actually demonstrated. (SLD)

In a class on pediatric cardiovascular dysfunction, 43 nursing students were taught via lecture/discussion; a treatment group of 42 also played a "Jeopardy"-style game. Posttest scores were higher than pretest scores for both groups. The treatment group answered 94% correctly and the comparison group 85%. (SK)

Surveyed 1,131 university freshmen. Found subjects able to recognize suicidal behavior in peers but unsure of how to respond helpfully. Model of self-efficacy, emotional comfort, knowledge of helpful response, and knowledge of suicidal behavior predicted student's intention to ask suicidal peer directly, "Are you thinking about killing yourself?"…

The speech of four phonologically disordered children (ages four and five) with place and voice errors affecting initial stop consonants was described through phonological and acoustic analyses. The presence of productive phonological knowledge, as inferred from acoustic data, facilitated rapid generalization of correct production of the treated…

Presents a rationale for instruction in critical reading (i.e., using a questioning attitude, logical analysis, and inference to judge the worth of what is read). Discuss factors involved in critical reading, including previous thinking, attitudes/prejudices, topical knowledge, and knowledge of critical reading skills. (DMM)

Studies the effect of training on nine parents' knowledge of childhood grief and on parent-child communication about death. Parents who received training had greater knowledge about childhood grief than did parents in the control group. No significant differences were found for parent-child communication about death. (RJC)

Two studies investigated 320 college students' knowledge about the effectiveness of alternative memory strategies for different tasks and the relationship of this knowledge to strategy use and task performance. Results indicate that students did know the relative effectiveness of different strategies, supporting current models of metamemory. (SLD)

Studied the ages at which 240 children in grades one to five read and transformed times given in analog and digital displays, linked times to activities, and judged the order of hours in the day. Findings indicated that digital time reading was well developed by the first grade. (RJC)

Explores the relationship between mathematical concepts and the circumstances of learning as they relate to within-individual variation. Analyzes previous results on mathematical concepts in and out of school in terms of their similarities and differences. (RJC)

Investigated the ability of 311 educators to discriminate instruction in reading comprehension from related activities. Results indicate that although 84 percent of teachers correctly identified comprehension instruction, they were unable to discriminate instruction from other types of activities. (RJC)