This present study investigated engineering students' conceptions and misconceptions related to derivative, particularly interpreting the graph of a function and constructing its derivative graph. Participants were 147 first year engineering students from four universities enrolled in first year undergraduate calculus courses with or without the…

Using quantitative assessment, Montana State University-Billings substantially improved and expanded its developmental education program and learning center during the past five years. Student-centered questions drove the research efforts. By gathering, analyzing and sharing hard data, the department identified unmet student needs, discovered…

In this book the author describes six teaching myths that prevent reform in education. These myths impact all students, but have a detrimental effect on low-performing students-those with disabilities or risk factors. Based on her perspective as a longtime classroom teacher and teacher educator, Dr. Snider examines the beliefs that guide teaching…

The renewal, modification, and ratification of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA; 2004) produced a number of changes in legislation, particularly in the identification for children with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). In particular, the requirement that a child must evidence a severe discrepancy…

Issues relating to the categorisation and labelling of pupils, and, the use of the terms "special educational needs" and "disability" in particular, have been the topic of debate in "BJSE" before. In this article, Sue Keil, a research officer at the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), Olga Miller, of the…

This article, from the "Journal of College Admission's" Special Diversity Issue, which in its entirety has won the 1997 Muir Award, discusses various misconceptions regarding individuals with multiple learning disabilities and whether or not these individuals should consider college as an option. The author contends that students with learning…

Since the publication of Fodor's (1983) The Modularity of Mind, there have been quite a few discussions of cognitive modularity among cognitive scientists. Generally, in those discussions, modularity means a property of specialized cognitive processes or a domain-specific body of information. In actuality, scholars understand modularity in many…

This article highlights the importance of considering the flow of newcomers into church life and the inadequacy of relying solely upon changes in numbers of attenders in assessing the effectiveness of churches. Drawing upon data collected in four countries, Australia, England, New Zealand and the United States of America, this article looks at the…

This article reviews and clarifies many inconsistencies and misconceptions in the research literature on the effects of family functioning on African American male academic achievement. It was concluded that when parents use an African American version of authoritative parenting, teach children about their cultural heritage and personal power to…

This paper describes writing assignments from a modern algebra course which were used to foster the development of proof-writing skills. Each assignment consists of proofs and mathematical work supposedly written by fictional characters, where the proofs are designed to illustrate common misconceptions, difficult points, and typical writing flaws.…

After spending most of the day in school, students are given additional assignments to be completed at home. It is worth asking not only whether there are good reasons to support the nearly universal practice of assigning homework, but why it is so often taken for granted--even by vast numbers of teachers and parents who are troubled by its impact…

Gignac [Gignac, G. E. (2006). "Evaluating subtest "g" saturation levels via the single trait-correlated uniqueness (STCU) SEM approach: Evidence in favor of crystallized subtests as the best indicators of "g"." "Intelligence," 34, 29-46.] used a single-trait correlated uniqueness (STCU) CFA approach to…

We present a simple laboratory activity for introductory-level physics students which involves rolling balls down pipes and analysing their subsequent flight trajectories. Using balls of equal size but different mass allows students to confront their misconceptions of a mass dependence of the exit speed of the balls from the pipes. The concepts of…

Recently, "Developmental Psychology" published 2 articles on the shape bias; both rejected the authors' previous proposals about the role of attentional learning in the development of a shape bias in object name learning. A. Cimpian and E. Markman (2005; see record EJ733667) did so by arguing that the shape bias does not exist but is an…

"SAMHSA News" is the national newsletter of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Published six times a year (bimonthly) by SAMHSA's Office of Communications, SAMHSA News contains information about the latest substance abuse and mental health treatment and prevention practices, recent statistics on mental health and…