Excellence in academic performance at the graduate level requires good command of writing skills. Teachers' written feedback can help students to develop their writing skills. However, several personal and contextual factors may influence feedback processes and its utilization by students. Therefore, understanding these factors is essential to…

This article is based on an interview with a Norwegian physical education (PE) teacher on the social contact she had with pupils when teaching them PE. The article examines a two-dimensional aspect of a teaching situation relating to swimming instruction in PE, especially focusing on pupils' positive experiences of learning to swim and the…

Picturebooks were one format of multimodal text used during the classroom-based research that is featured in this article. Although the research conducted with a class of grade 7 students had several overarching purposes, the two most relevant to this article were to investigate student development of visual meaning-making skills and competencies…

Reports from 13 Further Mathematics Knowledge Networks supported by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics [NCETM] are analysed. After summarizing basic characteristics of the networks regarding leadership, composition and pattern of activity, each of the following aspects is examined in greater depth: Developmental aims…

The present research investigated whether an illustration and/or a warning could help students to (a) build a situational model of the problem situation and (b) solve problematic word problems (P-items) that require realistic thinking more realistically. In 2 similar studies conducted in Turkey and Belgium, the authors presented 10- to 11-year-old…

Undergraduate students' perceptions of their presences in online learning environments are critical in creating online courses that can best enhance their learning. Hence, understanding how learners perceive their presences in the online environment could assist course designers and instructors in creating quality online learning experiences. The…

This study investigated participant's reactions to hate crime versus nonbiased crime incident reports that included more or less detail about the crime using a 2 (victim race: African American, unstated) × 2 (amount of information: vague, detailed) between-subjects factorial design. We hypothesized that participants would be more sympathetic,…

Research indicates that Americans believe instructor political bias to be a serious problem in the college classroom, as many professors are considered a liberal elite. In light of scholarship suggesting that characteristics students bring with them to the classroom may influence their perception of instructor communication behaviors, the present…

The authors examined student responses to faculty traits. Earlier findings revealing a preference for male instructors were obtained before female faculty and students were prevalent on college campuses and may have reflected a male demographic similarity effect. It was hypothesized that students would more favorably evaluate faculty who were…

Building on the "questioning-based discourse analytical" framework developed by Singapore-based science educator and discourse analyst, Christine Chin, this study investigated the extent to which fifth-grade science teachers' use of questions with either an authoritative or dialogic orientation differentially restricted or expanded the…

The paper aims at elaborating a strategy regarding students' admission at the colleges of technology in the western region of Saudi Arabia. Purposely, the study surveys the opinion of the students attending the Jeddah College of Technology (J.C.T) and reports on seven socio-economic factors, specifically, the "J.C.T. evaluation system,"…

Recent education policy designed to promote arts education tends to focus on how such curriculum supports "skills for innovation" required for success in the global economy. Emphasis on the transfer of arts-based learning to professional innovation and achievement, a dynamic that is difficult to determine, can undermine the value of…

Organic chemistry problems that interrelate and integrate synthesis with spectroscopy are presented. These synthesis-spectroscopy roadmap (SSR) problems uniquely engage second-year undergraduate organic chemistry students in the personal discovery of organic chemistry. SSR problems counter the memorize-or-bust strategy that many students tend to…

In this article we report the findings of a two-phase action research study focused on the role of collaborative work in the development of elementary students' writing skills at a Colombian school. This was decided after having identified the students' difficulties in the English classes related to word transfer, literal translation, weak…

Learning communities can strengthen early undergraduates' learning, but planning them can be daunting for instructors. Learning communities usually rely on integrative assignments that encourage interdisciplinary analysis. This article reports on our experiences using microloans as an interdisciplinary assignment in a learning community that…