This study examined how local schools responded to students' outside-of-school summer courses, particularly regarding the awarding of credit and appropriate placement. It involved 262 middle and high school administrators of students who had attended a gifted summer program at a local university. Survey data showed the critical influence of the…

This study examined the generalizability of a self-report measure of psychache to an offender population. The factor structure, construct validity, and criterion validity of the Psychache Scale was assessed on 136 male prison inmates. The results showed the Psychache Scale has a single underlying factor structure and to be strongly associated with…

There is growing awareness of the need to equip students to think through the ethical implications of developments in biology. We describe an exercise in which students work in teams to produce websites about current controversial issues within the subject. Participants report a significant improvement in their knowledge of bioethics and…

This article addresses an important problem that faces educators in assessing students' competence levels in learned tasks. Data from 165 students from Massachusetts and Minnesota in the United States are used to examine the validity of five assessment modes (multiple choice test, scenario, portfolio, self-assessment and supervisor rating) in…

Online education, supported by online resources such as e-mail, chat rooms, and Web-based instruction, is a rapidly growing area of tertiary/higher education that has been facilitated by increased usage of home computers and advances in the development of user-friendly interfaces. A range of positive outcomes has accompanied the growth of online…

The value of increasing student input to learning opportunity design issues was explored through an action research project. In response to student-identified learning needs, a learning session on a first-year undergraduate research methods module was re-designed. The learning outcomes of two parallel student groups (one experiencing the original…

This study used a diagnostic testing approach to compare the mathematics achievement of eighth-grade students across a sample of 20 countries, analyzing data from the Third International Math and Science Study-Revised (TIMSS-R, 1999). Using the rule-space method, student mastery was measured on 23 specific content knowledge and processing…

There is much information from educational psychology studies on how people learn. The thesis of this paper is that we should use this information to guide the ways in which we teach rather than blindly using our traditional methods. In this context, problem-based learning (PBL), as a method of teaching widely used in medical schools but…

The process of classroom observation is experienced by all, teaching in further, adult and higher education. This will either be as part of the organisation's quality assurance procedure, in-service staff completing teaching awards or the training of pre-service student teachers. Given its evaluative nature, it is a practice that generates strong…

In this article, the authors describe a psychoeducational group model for adult survivors of childhood abuse and neglect. The model is specifically designed to assist group members to receive support and validation, to identify the effects of abuse on present functioning, and to learn new life skills.

Theory has always possessed an elusive, intangible, and almost ethereal quality. Comprising nothing but ideas compressed into words, it is supposed to guide literacy interactions and transactions. Theory provides the "why" that underlies the "how to" of teaching. Yet the author, a teacher, has often struggled with the effort of translating theory…

The dissociative reactions in acute stress disorder purportedly impede encoding and organization of traumatic memories and consequently impair the individual's ability to retrieve trauma-related details. A qualitative examination was conducted on trauma narratives of individuals with acute stress disorder (N = 15) prior to cognitive behavior…

Although Vygotskian principles involving the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) are hailed as tenets undergirding teaching and learning within a constructivist setting, these principals have not been implemented widely within school classrooms. Tharp and Gallimore, building on the notion that learning can be maximized when a teacher has a…

This study examined emotional and perceptional changes American people had experienced 10 to 12 months after the September 11 (9-11) terrorist attacks. A nationally representative sample of 807 U.S. adults ages 18 or older was interviewed using random-digit dialing that included unpublished numbers and new listings. The results indicated that 5 to…

The S-Star Trial Bioinformatics on-line course (www.s-star.org) is a global experiment in bioinformatics distance education. Six universities from five continents have participated in this project. One hundred and fifty students participated in the first trial course of which 96 followed through the entire course and 70 fulfilled the overall…