Bridging courses designed to support students commencing tertiary education are widespread, and some evidence for the value of semester-length courses has been reported; however, little attention has been paid to short-but-intense bridging courses, and empirical evidence of their effectiveness is particularly sparse. The current study followed the…

In this paper, the author shares his thoughts regarding the future role of popular music in music education at a moment when there seems to be greater receptiveness to this idea than ever before. What is the reason for this increased receptiveness? It may be that music educators have sensed that a new playing field has evolved. There is now some…

In this article, we describe student perceptions of, and experiences in, a one-semester, required sociology research capstone course. The data come from 106 students in eight sections of the course taught at three institutions. We used multiple methods for data collection: questionnaires, focus groups, and learning reflection essays. Our results…

This phenomenographic study documented changes in student-held electrical concepts the development of meaningful learning among students with both low and high prior knowledge within a problem-based learning (PBL) undergraduate electrical engineering course. This paper reports on four subjects: two with high prior knowledge and two with low prior…

Purpose: Work-place learning takes place in many settings and in different ways, resulting in knowledge and skills of different kinds. The recognition process in the work place is however often implicit and seldom discussed in terms of recognition of prior learning (RPL). The aim of this paper is to give examples of how the knowledge/skills of…

This article presents a grounded theory of "integration of learning" among traditional aged college students, which is characterized by the demonstrated ability to link various skills and knowledge learned in a variety of contexts. The author analyzed 194 interviews with students at liberal arts colleges to investigate empirically the ways…

Many approaches to instruction focus on helping people learn to recognize "the old in the new"--to turn what would otherwise be novel problems into familiar patterns that can be solved efficiently through the reuse of prior learning. Instruction that leads to efficient transfer is important, but it can also promote what we call "overzealous"…

The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between students' motivational orientations and their chemistry achievements and perception of learning within the original case of the hands-on approach to visible spectrometry. A total of 295 students from Polish and Slovenian vocational and technical high schools participated in the…

The purpose of this article is to assess the knowledge, application of knowledge, and attitudes associated with the reading of different genres of expository science texts. We assigned approximately half of a sample consisting of 220 students 14-15 years of age, chosen at random, to read an excerpt from a popular scientific text, and the other…

Learning of science has been traditionally conducted in classrooms or in the form of lectures. Science education is usually context-specific learning as students are taught a particular module of content in class. In problem-based learning, they are provided with examples of problems in which they learn how to solve these types of problems.…

Reading comprehension--the ability to understand the meaning of text--is a foundational ability that enables children to learn in school and throughout life. Children who struggle with reading comprehension in the third or fourth grade are at high risk for dropping out of school, with detrimental effects on their future employment, income, and…

This research tested and extended a laboratory-derived model of the origins of attitude certainty using a real attitude object: Teaching children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In Study 1, an experiment manipulated the amount of information, thought, and consistency of information delivered to pre-service teachers (n = 224)…

This study examined the prediction of dropouts through data mining approaches in an online program. The subject of the study was selected from a total of 189 students who registered to the online Information Technologies Certificate Program in 2007-2009. The data was collected through online questionnaires (Demographic Survey, Online Technologies…

Contrary to classical problem-based learning, in guided problem-based learning, the learning goals are predetermined by the instructor--on the basis of a detailed decomposition of the subject matter to be studied--to activate prior knowledge and to structure self-study and subsequent group discussion. This study investigated the effects of…

This action research study was designed to elicit urban, secondary school teachers' understandings of themselves as adult learners and their perceptions of job-embedded professional development in a single, urban school district in Connecticut. The conceptual framework that guided this study was derived from Knowles, Holton, and Swanson's (2011)…