This article contains excerpts from the author's two seminal texts: "Literature as Exploration (New York: MLA, 1938) and "The Reader, the Text, the Poem" (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978). In "Literature as Exploration," the author first presented her transactional theory of reading as she explored the personal, social,…

Through a LISREL analysis, this study validated the Constructivist Internet-based Learning Environment Survey (CILES). CILES consisted of six scales, sorted by two aspects. The first aspect, the cognitive-metacognitive aspect, included the scales of student negotiation, inquiry learning, and reflective thinking, whereas the second aspect, the…

There is no common agreement on the meaning of the word "understand". However, there is agreement on what students should be able to do with material they understand. Bloom et al. discuss kinds of tasks a student should be able to do, provided that the student understands. In a similar way, Biggs and Collis provide a taxonomy intended to evaluate…

While teaching basic reading to students at a two-year college, the author had the idea to introduce his students to texts as challenging as the traditional material, but less complex. In doing so, he hoped to tap into the students' high competency in "street literacy"--the ability to decode the visual signs that are omnipresent in popular…

At the University of Akron, the administration decided to segregate the students previously called "provisional" from the "regular" population. As an open-access institution, the university directly admits only approximately 15 percent of the students to a program of study. The vast majority of students start in University College and transfer to…

Students are rarely given the opportunity of being decisionmakers in class, and when they are, they may feel unsure of how to organize their own learning. However, over time they come to appreciate the benefits of a more active engagement in learning English. In this paper, I describe a procedure based on Exploratory Practice (EP) for guiding…

The present study was undertaken to determine the impact of different parenting styles on college students' adaptation to college. During the second week of college, 80 first-year students from two-parent families completed the Tests of Reactions and Adaptations to College, English version and the Parental Authority Questionnaire. Authoritative…

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary school students' accounts of optimal challenge. Twenty-seven children (aged 7-9 years) participated in semi-structured interviews during which they were shown a video-recording of their participation in a physical education class and invited to describe their experiences of optimally challenging…

Numerous reports over recent years emphasise the importance of teamwork training in undergraduate programs in environment education at tertiary level. This paper describes a project undertaken by a team of final year undergraduate environment students from four faculties at RMIT University in Australia working on a multi-disciplinary environment…

A cognitive lab technique (n=156) was used to investigate interactions between individual factors and item factors presumed to affect assessment validity for diverse students, including English language learners. Findings support the concept of "access"--an interaction between specific construct-irrelevant item features and individual…

Eduardo Galeano's "Memory of Fire: Genesis" raises a number of questions concerning the "politics of location," a term that may be defined as the intersections, tensions, and complications that people of color bring to space and what space means in terms of hierarchies and power, racial and gender stratifications. Text can also…

TestMaker is a project in which computer-based programs are being developed to help educators create tests. The program was designed as an instructional and developmental tool for teacher-education students. TestMaker consists of four modules: Advisement; Test Creation; Student Test; and Presentation Analysis. The Advisement module runs…

Recent developments in computer and multimedia technologies bring about the need to reconsider the education of today's teachers and future teachers and to update the technology-related content of literacy education coursework. "Application" software receives the most attention from researchers and theorists in literacy education. Use of…

Academic Development Program students face a special challenge. Within a few short weeks, they must hone their reading, writing, and speaking skills while scrambling to adjust to life in college. Usually, pre-freshmen enrolled in the Academic Development Program are not familiar with the demands of academic reading, writing, and oral response. For…

Student emotional response to teacher classroom behaviors may offer a theoretical framework for explaining student learning. Such a framework may encompass other models, such as arousal/motivation or identification, in offering an explanation of why students learn when teachers exhibit certain behaviors. Emotional response has provided…