Survey of 74 Canadian universities suggests prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) is gaining legitimacy because of the government/industry agenda to prepare the workforce, growing emphasis on lifelong learning, changing demographics, and students' conviction that learning outside the classroom should be validated. Quality assurance and…

This article reports the results of a study of Master's degree students concerning the role of individual differences in Internet searching, including cognitive styles, levels of prior experience, Internet perceptions, study approaches, age, and gender. Discusses retrieval effectiveness and self-efficacy and suggests implications for system…

Learning using primary literature may be a way of developing a capacity for scientific ways of thinking among students. Since reading research articles is a difficult task for novices, we examined the possible benefits of learning using primary literature versus secondary literature, particularly with respect to their influence on the creation and…

Because most English language learners receive instruction in content-area classes, teachers of these classes need to understand the varying backgrounds of ELLs and their different levels of conversational and academic English skills. The authors have developed a research-based model for effectively delivering sheltered instruction to ELLs in…

This study examines the experiences and knowledge of students who are participating in a recruitment course in a secondary science, mathematics, and computer science teacher education program. It looks at students who are participating in a recruitment course in a secondary science, mathematics, and computer science teacher education program at a…

One of the most noticeable changes to the university student profile over the last decade is the increasing number of mature-age students. This study examined the relationship between previous academic performance, psychological characteristics of the student, learning strategies, and the first year academic performance of school leavers and…

Few issues on the educational scene have proven as vexatious as the achievement gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in society. The achievement gap has proved both substantial and persistent, despite the good intentions and considerable efforts of thousands of educators and notwithstanding the "No Child Left Behind" Act and other reform…

Recently the Educational Testing Service (ETS) has modified its Student Instructional Report II (SIR II) for use in online distance education courses. The SIR II is a second-generation survey based on more than thirty years of experience with student evaluations (Centra, 1998; Centra and Gaubatz, n.d.). The e-SIR II is based on the highly…

The relationship between attitude and the practice of teaching writing among preservice teachers is an important consideration for a number of reasons. Perhaps most significantly, these students will soon be responsible for teaching writing in schools where superior writing instruction is needed. The need for improving the effectiveness of future…

Recent developments about cognitions underlying mathematical learning are beginning to suggest that the activation and appropriate use of prior knowledge by students is, to a large measure, controlled by the quality of organisation of that knowledge. Thus, teaching needs to support the construction of well-connected mathematical knowledge. An…

The Advanced Technical School from Novi Sad set up a completely new study group for web design in 2004. The main goals of the paper are to explain the steps that were taken in starting this group, and to present the educational program based on our own research through the organization of the group and course descriptions. Since there is a…

TeamXchange, an online team-based exercise, is described. TeamXchange is consistent with the collaborative model of learning and provides a means of fostering enhanced student learning and engagement through collaboration in virtual teams experiencing periodic membership changes. It was administered in an undergraduate Organizational Behavior…

This qualitative study focuses on ten graduate students in an English education master's program, who were enrolled in a course that I taught on teaching literature in the secondary school. I had restructured the course to make students the center of a series of conversations. For the study, I drew upon memory theory to examine their imagined…

With the advent of the standards movement, most states have produced statewide tests that evaluate children's understanding of expository science text. Expository texts are designed to explain, describe, or present a logical argument. Usually, the purpose of expository texts is to present new information. This article describes a research-based…

This study investigated students' achievement regarding photosynthesis and respiration in plants in relation to reasoning ability, prior knowledge and gender. A total of 117 eighth-grade students participated in the study. Test of logical thinking and the two-tier multiple choice tests were administered to determine students' reasoning ability and…