The results from a cross-national study comparing calculus performance of students at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai and students at the University of Michigan before and after their first university calculus course are presented. Overall, ECNU significantly outperformed Michigan on both the pre- and post-tests, but the Michigan…

Undergraduate biology education is often viewed as being focused on memorization rather than development of students' critical-thinking abilities. We speculated that open-note testing would be an easily implemented change that would emphasize higher-order thinking. As open-note testing is not commonly used in the biological sciences and the…

The article explores "culture talk" at the outset of first-time encounters between teachers and students of English as a foreign language in the conversation lounge of a Japanese university. It analyses the interactional procedures by which the foreign place of origin of the teacher becomes the topic of conversation following his or her…

This study investigates the academic performance differences between Chinese and UK students in a UK university using two undergraduate cohorts by uniquely exploring academic performance patterns among Chinese and UK students across a full degree study period (3 or 4 years). The results reveal a dramatic drop in performance among Chinese students…

Poverty has always been a problem in the United States and no doubt the condition unfortunately will always prevail. Title One schools will always have children enrolled who come from the lower socioeconomic class. This article has to do with the devastating effect of poverty, including stories from a classroom teacher of students who lived in…

Many students who earn a bachelor's degree also aspire to earn a graduate degree. In this study, we examined student and institutional characteristics that are related to graduate school enrollment. Student characteristics included demographic characteristics; high school performance measures, coursework taken, and extracurricular activities;…

The paper introduces a virtual collaborative learning setting called "Net Economy," which we established as part of an international learning network of currently seven universities. Using the Community of Inquiry framework as guidance and Canonical Action Research (CAR) as the chosen research design, the discussion forum of the online…

Students who move between schools often have more social, psychological, and academic problems than their peers whose enrollment is stable. However, the negative effects may also be felt among classrooms and schools. To date, much of the student mobility research do not control for demographics or prior achievement, and utilized a sample size of…

This article contextualises the use of accreditation for prior experiential learning (APEL) in European higher education by analysing the notions of desert and merit. We propose that the credentialising of certain types of knowledge can lead to a narrow definition of education which merely endeavours to serve consumer imperatives so as to market…

Very few studies (e.g., Arnold, 1998; Joosten-ten Brinke, et al., 2009) have examined the ways in which evaluators assess students' prior learning. This investigation explored the ways that evaluators described students' prior learning in final assessment reports at a single, multiple-location institution. Results found four themes; audience,…

The authors investigated conditions under which judgments in source-monitoring tasks are influenced by prior schematic knowledge. According to a probability-matching account of source guessing (Spaniol & Bayen, 2002), when people do not remember the source of information, they match source-guessing probabilities to the perceived contingency…

The article presents a metaphorical set of images that emerged from reflections on practice and the research gathered during that practice in an early childhood summer program. A metaphor is crafted of several blocks that "click together" as pieces of theory and practice intended to provide teachers and teacher educators with examples of…

With applications of Tree of Life data becoming ever more prevalent in everyday contexts, tree thinking has emerged as a vital component of scientific literacy. This article reports a study testing the hypothesis that instruction in natural selection, which is the primary focus of US evolution education at the high school and introductory college…

Even though peer process feedback is an often used tool to enhance the effectiveness of collaborative learning environments like PBL, the conditions under which it is best facilitated still need to be investigated. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of individual versus shared reflection and goal setting on students' individual…

This article discusses the ongoing effects of colonialism on Aboriginal peoples in Canada and how these might be revealed and disrupted through particular curricular initiatives, informed by understandings of critical peacebuilding education. One such initiative, treaty education, has the potential to disturb dominant national narratives in…