Using small learning groups in graduate education is a way to prepare learners to meet the challenges they face as professionals and to enrich and facilitate adult learning in ways that cannot be accomplished as well by members working alone. This technique also helps graduate students develop the skills needed to work productively as group…

Students pursuing master's and doctoral degrees in disciplines other than statistics are required to take applied courses in descriptive and inferential statistics. These students are the brightest in their disciplines but lack mathematical background. Most are older, mature, working professionals who want the best out of these courses. Yet, they…

In "Working-Class Women in the Academy," Laura Weaver explains how her working class background affected the attitudes she developed toward members and the elements of the middle-class academy. Weaver says she considers education a privilege, something that must be earned. She holds a particular empathy for working-class students who…

Much has been written on the ethics of teaching syllabi that pursue a particular social agenda. Depending on the commentator, these syllabi have been characterized as transformative, socially responsible, political, politically correct, unethical and immoral. Throughout this literature, however, the assumption is that the teacher presenting the…

A study was done of higher education evening students in order to both generate information about this increasingly important student constituency and to provide students with a hands on demonstration of research methods. Forty-one undergraduate students in an introductory psychology class designed, distributed and analyzed a survey questionnaire…

This study investigated the effects of course structure variables on the computer anxiety, confidence, and attitudes of college students. Course structure variables include the number of weeks the course met (course length) and the number of meetings per week (course frequency). The effects of differences in instructors' use of anxiety reducing…

This paper examines whether an experimental treatment that encourages generativity and meaningful encoding can facilitate spontaneous analogical thinking, measuring the spontaneous generation of a relevant analog in solving a problem rather than the amount of factual material learned. Sixty-eight undergraduate students participated by reading the…

Love is among the most fundamental aspects of the experience of being human, but measures of perceptions of the experience of love have only recently been explored. One of the most popular measures was developed by C. Hendrick and S. Hendrick. Most previous studies of the measure have used exploratory factor analysis and orthogonal factor…

This paper explores the difference between conversations of new acquaintances and those of established friends. Psycho- and sociolinguistic literature on the subject lacks a systematic grammatical and lexical approach to the analysis of distinguishing features. This paper describes a longitudinal study of the 1991-1992 Edinburgh University Applied…

As teaching assistants, graduate students are often thrown into the deep waters of their first courses with little or no direction, instruction, or support. Teacher training programs offer little help in achieving a sense of professional teaching or classroom methodology. The Mentor program of Radford University's English Department provides an…

This report presents a summary of the findings of the first 6 years of a survey of graduate enrollment in 588 institutions in the United States. The enrollment survey was mailed each year to the approximately 630 institutions who are members of the Council of Graduate Schools or one of the four regional graduate associations. The tables and…

This paper reports on the employment need for catalogers as perceived by library science students and practicing library administrators. Library literature provided several contradictory views on whether there is or is not a significant need for catalogers today; and, if there is, whether entry level catalogers or those with experience are in…

This paper presents an analysis of existing professional development activities for international teaching assistants (ITAs), graduate students from abroad, at Canadian universities. It is based on Sork's Basic Elements of Program Planning model which highlights active elements in program planning. The first chapter discusses factors external to…

An ethnographic study examined three new teaching assistants (TAs) from July 1995 to July 1996 at a state university. Data included observing their classrooms, gathering artifacts, and talking about their experiences to determine what types of training and experiences lead to a successful TA and what elements or characteristics comprise a…

This paper first puts forward a number of reasons why postgraduate students need to be able to present bibliographic information in a form that satisfies academic conventions. Possible sources of information for the student are then enumerated; global principles of bibliographic presentation (completeness, clarity and convenience, consistency,…