This study was designed to investigate the effects of two instructional approaches (4C-ID versus conventional) on learners' knowledge-acquisition and learning transfer of the electrical circuits content in Physics. Participants were 129 9th graders from a secondary school in Lisbon, M = 14.3 years, SD = 0.54. The participants were divided in two…

Absenteeism has been a common and very extended problem in university spheres for several years. This problem has become a permanent feature in academic studies in general, yet it has received scarce empirical research attention. This work is focused on the analysis of the factors that determine university absenteeism. It evaluates a series of…

Part of a larger initiation mixed methods study (Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989), this paper discusses the changes in young children's learning performance and efficiency (one element of the quantitative portion of the larger study) during clinical interviews in which each child interacted with a variety of virtual manipulative…

Given the wide range of options for students to further their education online, it is important to determine what factors impact overall student perceptions of online course quality. Specifically, the study validates the reliability of Merrill's (2012) First Principles of Instruction as factors that impact students' perceptions of online course…

An alternating treatments design was used to compare the effects of two reading fluency interventions on the oral reading fluency and maze accuracy of four fourth-grade students. Also, by taking into account time spent in intervention, the efficiency of the two interventions was compared. In the adult-mediated repeated reading (RR) condition,…

This article provides both an experiment and a framework for discussion that students can use to compare the efficiency of producing ethanol by using corn versus sugarcane as a raw material.

In context-aware ubiquitous learning, students are guided to learn in the real world with personalized supports from the learning system. As the learning resources are realistic objects in the real world, certain physical constraints, such as the limitation of stream of people who visit the same learning object, the time for moving from one object…

It is known that assessment drives learning and hence a good assessment design is key to effective student development. This paper gives some case studies in effective assessment strategies within engineering. The main contribution is to demonstrate how one can simultaneously meet a number of requirements with individual assessments and therefore…

On-line training is becoming an interesting phenomenon in Australia and has attracted a lot of interest across many industries and businesses (Chan and Ngai, 2007). The research reported here looks at the use of online training in corporations in Australia. It focuses on two aspects of online training, the factors that "warrant" its…

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text-reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity): how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word-reading fluency, reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word-reading fluency and reading comprehension. The study examined (a) developmentally changing relations…

Over a period of several decades, non-tenure-track faculty members (NTTF) have become a majority of instructional faculty among nonprofit higher education institutions. A growing volume of research points to a relationship between the poor working conditions or lack of support these faculty members often experience and adverse effects on student…

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text-reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity): how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency, reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word-reading fluency and reading comprehension. The study examined (a) developmentally changing relations…

In this article the author discusses the role that committees play within a university's bureaucracy. This article takes a close look at key committees on the university campus and how they shape policy and practice. It explores how committees can prove to be a vital and needed avenue to change. The author sees committees as "the life blood…

The purpose of this hearing was to shed light on wasteful federal government spending. At a time when the nation faces a historic fiscal crisis, everyone must make a concerted effort to reduce federal spending. A necessary step in this process is to eliminate and streamline federal programs. Now more than ever, it is critical to ensure taxpayer…

The influence of internal (movement focus) and external (outcome focus) attentional-focusing instructions on muscular endurance were investigated using three exercise protocols with experienced exercisers. Twenty-three participants completed a maximal repetition, assisted bench-press test on a Smith's machine. An external focus of attention…