This list of publications contains approximately 230 items published by the National Research Center on Student Learning (NRCSL) over the last seven years and reflects the range of theoretical and applied work that is undertaken in the NRCSL research program. The publications listed in this volume report on NRCSL research, collaborations, and…

Prejudice and how it can lead to discrimination is discussed with children as the audience. Discrimination begins with prejudice: the idea that one group is better than another. Although prejudice is morally wrong, it is not illegal, but it can lead to illegal discrimination. Discrimination is discussed with regard to: (1) individual rights; (2)…

An exploratory study was conducted to evaluate a model that predicts a five-step developmental sequence from dualistic to systematic conceptions of racism among young white adults. The model predicts developmental changes for white middle-class young adults within the context of a college cultural-diversity course. The following steps in…

Introducing architectural concepts to children is a relatively new area of the curriculum for schools, whether elementary schools or high schools. The use of picture books and creative dramatics to encourage children to think about architecture is explored. In a few hours, a fourth-grade class considered the destruction and rebuilding of a…

The project PARK-IT! represents a unique partnership between a public elementary school and a city park in which students and teachers utilize a small naturalized area of the park as a Land Laboratory, and in return become its stewards. The project also includes this curriculum activity guide which can assist teachers in using the Land Lab with…

The objective of this pretest-posttest Quasi-Experimental Design study was to determine the effects of LOGO Based Instruction (LBI) compared to instruction by teacher lecture and pencil-and-paper activities on: (1) students' understanding of the concepts of point, ray, line, and line segment; (2) students' attitudes toward learning geometry,…

Research has demonstrated that people have difficulties recognizing ratio relationships involving multiplication. This paper is divided into four sections. The first section describes a study that was part of the three-year study of the mathematical and pedagogical development of prospective elementary teachers. The classroom teaching experiment…

This annual publication contains 43 research papers on a variety of issues related to science education. Topics include the following: mature-age students; teacher professional development; spreadsheets and science instruction; the Learning in Science Project and putting it into practice; science discipline knowledge in primary teacher education;…

This study was designed to determine students' abilities and difficulties in articulating the relationship between function and derivative. High-school students were presented 15 problems during two 75-minute interviews in which they were asked to construct functions experimentally in three different contexts: motion, fluids, and number-change. In…

As powerful as the compelling reasons for reform in science education are, there is also uncertainty about where this reform may lead. This special issue focuses on reform in K-12 science education. The 23 articles in this book are placed in the following sections: (1) In this issue, (2) Project 2061, (3) The Scope, Sequence and Coordination…

This paper posits that metaphor, in addition to embellishing language, promotes a comprehensive understanding of complex concepts and phenomena and provides teachers with a powerful way to talk about their work. The main body of this document, which includes an extensive review of the literature, considers the use of metaphors for mentoring in the…

Some potential relative advantages of performance assessment strategies over paper-and-pencil tests using short-answer and multiple-choice item formats are discussed. The major advantage of the multiple-choice test is its ability to sample a large number of learning outcomes efficiently. However, performance assessments are increasingly being used…

As a collaborative effort between Brown University (Rhode Island) and three secondary schools, an instructional hypermedia research project called ACCESS (American Culture in Context: Enrichment for Secondary Schools) has created a corpus for use at the high school level which contains a substantial amount of textual, pictorial, audio, and video…

Two studies on students' conceptions/notions about the energy concept are presented. The first (study A) dealt with learning the energy concept during a grades 7/8 instructional unit ("energy, work, force, and power"). The second (study B), using students in West Germany, Switzerland, and the Philippines as subjects, examined outcomes of…

This issue contains abstracts and critical comments of 10 articles. Studies included focus on sex differences in mathematical learning, intuitive functional concepts, multiple embodiments of place value concepts, instructional activities of high and low achievers, effective management at the beginning of the school year, cross-age peer tutoring,…