In the inaugural issue of the "Journal of School Choice," John Merrifield offers an important, insightful, and highly provocative critique of charter schooling in an effort to "get people to think about the issues...and seek additional evidence". In "Charter Laws: Disaster, Detour, Irrelevant, or Reform Tool?" Merrifield maintains that economic…

Mankind has generally done its best to pursue the truth, since the beginning of time. Given the unlikely tenets of their ideology, though, today's feminists see the need to distort this pursuit. Therefore, radicals in that camp argue that the sex of the thinker is significant to the idea, that truth depends on its social construction, or that…

Stress facilitates memory formation, but only when the stressor is closely linked to the learning context. These effects are, at least in part, mediated by corticosteroid hormones. Here we demonstrate that corticosterone rapidly facilitates synaptic potentiation in the mouse hippocampal CA1 area when high levels of the hormone and high-frequency…

Discussions regarding young children and secure schools often focus on children's physical safety and external stressors such as chaotic families, dangerous neighborhoods, and terrorism. Less attention is given to the emotional security of children in schools, a necessary prerequisite to learning and healthy development. The most effective way to…

Research into how dyslexics cope and the effects of their coping has received little attention in the 100 years since dyslexia has been recognized. Why is this? Well it is not an easy area to investigate, partly as most qualitative studies have looked only at coping strategies of specific dyslexics. These are individuals and are unsuitable for…

After forty-nine years of watching and working in higher education, Arthur Chickering has determined that three R's truly are fundamental to helping students learn. In stark contrast to the traditional set, Chickering's three R's challenge educators to recognize, respect, and respond to wide-ranging individual differences among diverse learners.…

The paper describes a research project which observes the teaching practices of trainers working in three non-linguistic skill ("other-skill") areas--music (classical singing), table tennis, and flight simulation. The aim is to compare these practices with those of the language teacher and to consider whether the latter has anything to learn from…

The current study examined four factors affecting retention in Web-based community college courses. Analyses were conducted on student demographics, student learning styles, course communication and external factors. The results suggest that Web-based courses are more attractive to busy students who are also more likely to fail or drop the course.…

Purpose: The competitive environment facing all organizations has forced many of them to choose strategies that enhance organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Re-engineering is one of the tools used in administering productivity improvements, cost control and asset management. Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines the…

In many countries, an athlete's performance at sporting competitions is often used as part of the selection criteria for entry into college. These criteria could be biased depending upon the procedures utilized by the authorities in a particular country. The purpose of this study was to calibrate, by using the Rasch rating scale model, the…

Objective: To assess the undergraduate educational environment in a large UK medical school. Method: Prospective study using the already validated Dundee Ready Education Environment (DREEM) questionnaire ("Appendix 1"). Setting: A large UK medical school. Participants: All medical students enrolled in the academic year 2002/2003. Main…

Co-morbidity between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUD) is high and there is a need for empirically validated treatments designed to address PTSD among SUD patients. One effective PTSD treatment that may be useful in treating PTSD-SUD is exposure therapy. This paper reviews the relationship between comorbid PTSD…

Debate over the link between student learning styles and effective teaching has a long tradition, made more interesting by Karns's recent article "Learning Style Differences in the Perceived Effectiveness of Learning Activities." Fundamentally he asserts, in critiquing Morrison et al. (2003), that marketing educators should not adopt "a high…

Although extensive research has been carried out, describing the role of feedback in education, and many theoretical models are yet available, procedures and guidelines for actually designing and implementing feedback in practice have remained scarce so far. This explorative study presents a preliminary six-phase design model for feedback…

Performance management is an important managerial tool that directs employees' goals and behavior toward the organization's strategic goals. This article focuses on simulation-based training in performance management systems. The simulation developed at the School of Business Administration of the College of Management in Israel is based on a…