Implementing multimedia in the high school language arts curriculum has become necessary so that teachers may build connections between the background knowledge of students and the printed texts that are thrust upon them. This idea comes from an area of research in cognitive science known commonly as schema theory, which contends that every…

Online education has emerged in the 21st century as a popular alternative to traditional education. Proponents argue that online education provides opportunities for learners that they would otherwise do without (Beard & Harper, 2002; Hay, Peltier, & Drago, 2004). Opponents (see, for example, Hay et al., 2004) have argued, however, that the loss…

In this paper we provide an overview of the literature on understandings of drop out/opt out from science, technology and mathematics (STM) higher education programmes. After outlining the literature on students leaving higher education programmes in general, we then explore the research on drop out/opt out from STM programmes in particular, with…

Background: Whilst past studies have established the joint influence of student learning experience and study behaviour on academic achievement, few attempts have been made to determine their causal ordering in a longitudinal framework. Purpose: This study explored the reciprocal relationship between learning experience and study behaviour, and…

This study investigates the effects of topic interest and prior knowledge on text recall and annotation use of second language learners engaged in reading a hypermedia text. The participants were proficient learners of English enrolled in an undergraduate English Language Teaching programme. They were asked to read a hypermedia text that…

A cognitive model of human learning with understanding is introduced. Empirical research supporting the model, which is called the generative model, is summarized. The model is used to suggest a way to integrate some of the research in cognitive development, human learning, human abilities, information processing, and aptitude-treatment…

Liberal arts colleges have prided themselves on providing students with a quality undergraduate education among a scholarly community who are interested in their holistic development. Past research has found students who attended liberal arts colleges more frequently experienced Chickering and Gamson's (1987, 1991) good practices in undergraduate…

The authors explored how prior student achievement, through school types, predicted teacher self- and collective efficacy and perceived academic climate of 222 middle school teachers in Singapore. Teachers assigned to high-track and regular middle schools differed in their perception of self- and collective efficacy to promote organizational…

Tutors often make use of explanations that do not promote learning. One reason for the ineffectiveness of explanations might lie in tutors' failure to take into account a tutee's understanding in order to individualize instruction. To test whether tutors provide more effective explanations when they are assisted in assessing a tutee's…

This research combines the idea of cake format dynamic assessment defined by Sternberg and Grigorenko (2001) and the "graduated prompt approach" proposed by (Campione and Brown, 1985) and (Campione and Brown, 1987) to develop a multiple-choice Web-based dynamic assessment system. This research adopts a quasi-experimental design to…

This article examines the use of institutional research data on tertiary academic success of students in the first-year Biology program at the University of Canterbury in relation to their secondary school performance in English, Mathematics with Statistics, Biology and Chemistry. This study was commissioned by the School of Biological Sciences to…

In this article, factors inhibiting the use of mother tongue as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in rural foundation phase classes is investigated. I analysed qualitative data from focus group interviews with 20 foundation phase teachers that were selected through purposive sampling. Findings show that factors such as prior learner…

This report details the development and validation of the ENGAGE Grades 6-9, a measure of academic behavior designed to determine students' levels of academic risk. The work presented in this report is part of a comprehensive research program of educational risk assessment based on key academic behavior predictors (also known in the literature as…

This paper details the early childhood transition activities of three schools in southern Queensland, Australia, as reported by school administrators. The transition programs were analysed using the categories of the Transition to School Matrix of the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education. Activities fell into the first four categories…

Educational practices that purposely seek to tie the realities of place to instruction, particularly for the purpose of student engagement, are typically referred to as place-based education. This study investigates how one teacher considered place in making instructional choices for eighth grade English students in a rural high school, and…