Research and practice has placed an increasing emphasis on aligning classroom practices with scientific practices such as scientific argumentation. In this paper, I explore 1 challenge associated with this goal by examining how existing classroom practices influence students' engagement in the practice of scientific argumentation. To do so, I…

This report describes a linked series of Masters-level computer practical workshops. They comprise an advanced functional genomics investigation, based upon analysis of a microarray dataset probing yeast DNA damage responses. The workshops require the students to analyse highly complex transcriptomics datasets, and were designed to stimulate…

Exams have traditionally been given to evaluate students but in recent years, with the appearance of freely accessible on-line tutoring, quizzes can also be used as a learning tool. In systems where students can request quiz items until a satisfactory grade is obtained, new probabilistic approaches are required for dealing items to students and…

This article used the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) data to examine the relationship between exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) and child behavior problems (externalizing and internalizing), truancy, grade repetition, smoking, drinking, and use of marijuana. Longitudinal data analysis was conducted on 1,816…

Four visual-world experiments, in which listeners heard spoken words and saw printed words, compared an optimal-perception account with the theory of phonological underspecification. This theory argues that default phonological features are not specified in the mental lexicon, leading to asymmetric lexical matching: Mismatching input…

The present study regarded the self-regulated vs. not-self-regulated function and the indirect vs. direct (i.e., polite vs. impolite) linguistic form of middle school students' requests for help. Natural data (149 requests were sent via an online homework-help forum by French-speaking seventh to ninth graders) was used. Nearly 60% of the requests…

Academic libraries are currently facing their greatest challenge since the explosion in tertiary education and academic publishing, which began after World War II. The global digital revolution is affecting both the traditional forms of the creation, organisation, and dissemination of knowledge, and the world of tertiary education itself. In the…

Maintaining comparability of test scores is a major challenge faced by testing programs that have almost continuous administrations. Among the potential problems are scale drift and rapid accumulation of errors. Many standard quality control techniques for testing programs, which can effectively detect and address scale drift for small numbers of…

We analyzed over 100,000 student evaluations of instruction over 4 years in the college of business at a major public university. We found that the original instrument that was validated about 20 years ago is still valid, with factor analysis showing that the six underlying dimensions used in the instrument remained relatively intact. Also, we…

Background: In the past decade, there has been an increasing national policy push for educators to systematically collect, interpret, and use data for instructional decision making. The assumption by the federal government is that having data systems will be enough to prompt the use of data for a wide range of decision making. These policies rely…

Assessing student learning often promotes anxiety among students--and among teachers--not only because they worry about the results but because the items tested do not seem to reflect what students have learned. When assessment is student centered, however, it can promote learning and even motivation. Student-centered assessment shares many…

This report uses the Civil Rights Data Collection dataset released in early 2012 to raise questions and drive debate about the subject of teacher absence. This dataset comes from the first national survey to include school-level information on teacher absence. The measure constructed from this information is the percentage of teachers who were…

When people talk about human capital or talent in public education, they generally focus on teachers, not principals. That's a mistake. School districts and states generally don't take a strategic approach toward managing their principal workforce. Often, they lack even the most basic information about who is leading their schools: Where do most…

This qualitative study explored the professional experience of international student advisors. The statement of problem for this research was that the professional role of international student advisors has not been clearly defined or understood within U.S. higher education. The research questions asked (1) what encompassed the lived experience of…

Saudi Ministry of education is highly concerned with the pursuit of excellence in effective EFL teaching-learning in the arena of education but it experiences tardy progress especially in college level. This is a common scenario in almost every stage of learning in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Behind this backdrop, this paper explores the new…