The existing literature views the phenomenon of language shift mostly on the societal, or macro, level, which takes the focus away from individual cases. This investigation provides an alternative perspective to the currently prevalent view. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to develop an understanding of the role of personal choice in…

The purpose of this study was to investigate in detail the processes involved when the promotion of metaconceptual evaluation facilitates fifth grade students' construction, evaluation, and revision of their explanations for magnetic phenomena. Although much recent research emphasized the importance of student modeling and model construction,…

Preservice teachers benefit from the knowledge of many groups of people: college faculty, mentor teachers, and peers who are preparing to be teachers. While much research has been done about the contributions of faculty and mentor teachers to the education of preservice teachers, very little has been dedicated to the peer mentoring process, one in…

This work develops a constructivist grounded theory describing the influence of family and those that serve a role similar to family on the academic decision making of undergraduate first generation in college (FGC) students majoring in engineering. FGC students, in this study, are students with neither parent having attained a bachelor's…

Cultural competence among child welfare professionals is imperative given the rapidly changing American demographics. Current inadequacy in the delivery of culturally responsive social services is due to inadequate cultural competence training for child welfare professionals. This research study investigated the extent to which cultural competence…

African American boys are the lowest achieving academic group in public schools. Current research has delved into why this occurs and into implications for African American boys and communities. However, current research has focused on this in urban populations and has not looked at length at the status of African American boys in rural…

In one mid-western elementary school, teachers received training designed to change their teaching methods in their classrooms. Research has shown teachers have difficulty changing teaching behaviors. The research questions addressed teachers' beliefs and understandings of teaching in a new way. The theoretical framework for this study is…

A strong partnership between a school and the surrounding community leads to school success. Schools can be more successful with community involvement and engagement than if functioning in isolation. Community engagement leads to greater academic achievement of students. Utilizing qualitative case study methods, this study focused on the…

This study deals with the application of constructivist approach through individual and cooperative modes of spider and hierarchical concept maps to achieve meaningful learning on science concepts (e.g. acids, bases & salts, physical and chemical changes). The main research questions were: Q (1): is there any difference in individual and…

How do young children portray and describe their relationships with nature? In what ways do young children's relationships with nature vary by grade level? These two research questions guided this phenomenographic study, which investigated developmental differences in children's relationships with nature. A total of 176 children, aged 6-11, from…

This paper considers perceptions of children's learning and classroom practice to support learning in the Pakistani early years educational context. In Pakistan, there is a growing focus on quality provision of early childhood education and building early childhood education teacher capacity. Over the course of one academic year, data were…

The essentialist view that new technological innovations (especially Social Media) disrupt higher education delivery ride on educators' risk averse attitudes toward full scale adoption of unproven technologies. However, this unsubstantiated logic forecloses possibilities for embracing the constructive dimensions of disruptions, and grasping the…

Disputes about the impact of instructional guidance during teaching have been ongoing for more than a half century. On one side of this argument are those who believe that all people--novices and experts alike--learn best when provided with instruction that contains unguided or partly guided segments. On the other side are those who believe that…

In recent years there has been a shift in educational methodologies toward a student-centered approach, one which increasingly emphasizes the integration of computer tools and intelligent systems adopting different roles. In this paper we describe in detail the development of an Intelligent Information Access system used as the basis for producing…

Science teacher beliefs and classroom practice related to constructivism and factors that may influence classroom practice were examined in this cross-case study. Data from four science teachers in two schools included interviews, demographic questionnaire, Classroom Learning Environment Survey (preferred/perceived), and classroom observations and…