Although the Spanish American independence movements are reflexively assumed to have been inspired by the American and French Revolutions, the patriot leaders actually looked toward Great Britain for much of their inspiration and material support. One of their most cherished social goals was to reform and uplift their education systems and to that…

This edited volume brings together large-scale research as well as case studies from a range of geographical contexts and represents a variety of educational settings involving second language learners and users. Its aim is to explore the interrelated issues of psychology and technology use in second language learning settings as well as in more…

This paper reports on a study examining the attitudes and perceptions of a group of in-service teachers who are new or relatively new to facilitating self-directed learning (SDL) before and after they taught a course with an integrated SDL component. The study also investigates the impact on those teachers' attitudes of an orientation package…

Presence describes the ways in which human beings interact with each other. This qualitative study sought to understand the techniques experienced online teachers learned in order to be "present" with their students. Data were gathered primarily through interviews and syllabus reviews. The findings included techniques the teachers used…

In this single-case study, we examined the perceived influence of school-wide Apple iPod Touch integration on student learning and engagement. Data collection consisted of elementary teacher and principal interviews, as well as parent surveys. Findings revealed that there was a marked shift in teachers' and students' perceived roles when the iPod…

In order to be successful in problem-or project-based learning (PBL), students must take responsibility for the learning process by setting goals, monitoring, reflecting, and sustaining their motivation from the beginning of the project until the end. However, for many students, these processes do not occur naturally or easily. Therefore, the…

This article describes a collaborative self-study undertaken to identify the source of academic writing difficulties among graduate students and find ways to address them. Ten faculty members in a college of education came together to define the problem and to analyze data gleaned from faculty and student surveys, course documents, course…

The number of courses offered online and the level of students enrolled in online courses has dramatically increased over the last several years. The National Education Center for Education Statistics reports that during the 2006-2007 school term, 97% of public two-year institutions across the nation offered college-level distance learning…

The Web allows self-regulated learning through interaction with large amounts of learning resources. While enjoying the flexibility of learning, learners may suffer from cognitive overload and conceptual and navigational disorientation when faced with various information resources under disparate topics and complex knowledge structures. This study…

Successful college students are those who know who they are, what they want, and how to achieve their goals. In short, they are self-determined. Even though promoting self determination has traditionally focused on K-12 students with disabilities, little is known about how higher education faculty members regard these skills. The purpose of this…

The purposes of this study were to (a) determine the cost of converting BYU Independent Study's e-learning courses into OpenCourseWare, (b) assess the impact of opening those courses on paid enrollment in the credit-bearing versions of the courses, and (c) use these data to judge whether or not an OpenCourseWare program could be financially…

A number of reports in the US have highlighted the country's need for improved second language skills for both national security and economic competitiveness. The Language Flagship program, launched in 2002, aims to raise expectations regarding language proficiency levels at the post-secondary level and to address structural gaps in the curricula…

The current mixed-method study probed EFL instructors' mediative knowledge across four different contexts of teaching including language institutes, universities, and senior and junior high schools in Iran. To this end, 181 EFL instructors, 80 males and 101 females, completed mediative closed-questionnaire which composed of twelve items to measure…

In this three-year, mixed methods case study, the benefits and challenges of online learning for at-risk high school students were examined. A key finding was that at-risk students identify the benefits and challenges of online learning to be the same. While students appreciate the opportunity to work ahead and study at their own pace, they see it…

This study examined the predictive validity of a teacher rating scale called the Self-Regulation Strategy Inventory-Teacher Rating Scale (SRSI-TRS) and its level of convergence with several student self-report measures of self-regulated learning (SRL). Eighty-seven high school students enrolled in one of four sections of a mathematics course in an…