A survey instrument was developed to evaluate the practical knowledge about classroom practice of prospective and current deaf educators (beginning education students, graduating education students, novice teachers, and experienced teachers). Results were analyzed to show categories and characteristics of practical knowledge storage of prospective…

The Monte Carlo Quiz (MCQ), a single-item quiz, is so named because chance, with the roll of a die, determines (a) whether the quiz is administered; (b) the specific article, chapter, or section of the assigned reading that the quiz covers; and (c) the particular question that makes up the quiz. The MCQ encourages both punctual completion and deep…

We surveyed undergraduate students taking upper level psychology courses about their course and grade expectations as an extension of the work of Gaultney and Cann (2001) with introductory psychology students. More students believed success in a course was measured by good grades rather than by mastery of new material. They wanted effort to play a…

Four studies on the development and validation of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale for Heterosexuals (LGB-KASH) were conducted. Exploratory factor analysis of an initial item pool yielded 5 factors assessing internalized affirmativeness, civil rights attitudes, knowledge, religious conflict, and hate--indicating that…

Many students from elementary school through college encounter difficulty understanding their science textbooks, regardless of whether they have language disorders. This article discusses some of the particular difficulties associated with science text comprehension and possible remedies for facilitating and enhancing comprehension of challenging…

The purpose of this paper is to report our findings from a qualitative study intended to develop our understandings of: what high-poverty urban children understand and believe about food and food systems; and how such children transform and use that knowledge in their everyday lives (i.e. how do they express their scientific literacies including…

Science education has a key role to play in helping people to develop their understanding of the local and global dimensions of food, farming and land management. Based on a review of the literature on what is known about young people's (3-19) views towards and learning about these topics, a research agenda is outlined for consideration by the…

In this study we investigated the impact of a teacher's interpretive authority on the content and conduct of discussions of poetry in two ninth-grade classes. Three authority conditions were examined: a condition in which the teacher taught a poem he had written, a condition in which the teacher taught a poem he had taught many times previously,…

Bennett et al. (2000) refer to the notion of 'core skills' as an 'unfulfilled concept' (p. 48). Thus it is possible that different interpretations and values at the level of actual degree programmes may be hidden within this term. This study enquires into students' tacit notions of skills development within a specific degree programme and at a…

What science-related knowledge is actually used by nurses in their day-to-day clinical reasoning when attending patients? The study investigated the knowledge-in-use of six acute-care nurses in a hospital surgical unit. It was found that the nurses mainly drew upon their professional knowledge of nursing and upon their procedural understanding…

We make five over-time comparisons of student knowledge of civics and government: a) knowledge among 4th, 8th, and 11/12th graders between 1975/6 and 1998 using two separate NAEP trend assessments; b) knowledge over the same period by comparing responses to individual items asked in the 1975/6 and 1981/2 assessments to responses on identical…

Science education has moved from the traditional lecture-and-demonstration model toward a student inquiry model. Inquiry activities allow students to discover many relationships of science for themselves. However beneficial this shift may be, former assessment methods used in the traditional model may no longer effectively determine student…

This study examined relations among cortisol reactivity and measures of cognitive function and social behavior in 4- to 5-year-old children (N=169) attending Head Start. Saliva samples for the assay of cortisol were collected at the beginning, middle, and end of an approximately 45-min testing session. Moderate increase in cortisol followed by…

The authors applied constructivist learning theory to environmental education to explore knowledge gains, student attitudes, and engagement among high school students exposed to a week-long unit on nonnative plant species. The authors compared constructivist and traditional teaching methods. Each class was given a pretest and a posttest. The…

When the author discovered that the majority of fifth-grade students in her classroom were comprehending very little in their social studies textbooks, she decided to revamp the methods and materials in order to help all students acquire the content. The textbook not only held new and abstract content, but also contained transition words,…