In this article, we examine collaborative discourse in an informal undergraduate study group in which students focus on their lecture notes. Several decades of educational research have demonstrated that collaborative groups contribute to enhanced learning, and recent work has explored how external representations--such as those that appear in…

The human peripheral auditory system is fully developed at birth; however, myelination continues for several years in the higher auditory pathways. The aim of the present study was to assess the maturation course of the frequency and duration pattern tests and the middle latency response (MLR). One hundred and fifty normal participants ranging…

Design plays a central role in a range of subjects at different educational levels. Students have to acquire the knowledge necessary for the execution of tasks that enable them to construct an artefact or model that can be tested by simulation and that satisfies some requirements and verifies some constraints. They achieve this by means of a…

Assessment and learning are two sides of the same coin (Ramsden, 1992, Biggs, 1999) and their relationship has also been likened to the participants in a three-legged race (Harding & Craven, 2001). The aim of this article is to explore the potential of e-assessment to provide solutions to some of the challenges for e-learning. Drawing on…

Web enjoyment has been regarded as a component of system experience. However, there has been little targeted research considering the role of web enjoyment alone in student learning using web-based systems. To address this gap, this study aims to examine the influence of web enjoyment on learning performance and perceptions by controlling system…

A critical issue related to the use of simulation environments in school-based learning is the relationship between the use of these environments and the structure of traditional curricula. Teachers are often caught in the bind of attempting to address significantly raised standards for what all students should know, yet receiving very little…

This article presents Virtual Radiopharmacy Laboratory (VR LAB), a virtual laboratory accessible through the Internet. VR LAB is designed and implemented in the framework of the VirRAD European project. This laboratory represents a 3D simulation of a radio-pharmacy laboratory, where learners, represented by 3D avatars, can experiment on…

In higher education, different instructors who teach the same course may vary the instructional paths, pace, and depth of the content. These variations may result in different performances among learners. The intent of this research is to design a course management system that aggregates appropriate course units based on maximum consensus among…

The objective of this article is to examine the rhetoric of educational leadership within a Scandinavian context, as it occurs within the framework of New Public Management. The study asks questions about new demands on leadership expressed in policy documents. Local culture and distinctive aspects of national life tend to modify external…

This study examined the work of a principal of a Midwestern urban elementary school who used instructional supervision as a means of developing a learning community for adults. Implementing a variety of approaches adapted to the culture of the school, the principal crafted a process to meet the learning needs of 125 teachers and created an…

The effect of different combinations of item response theory (IRT) item parameters (item difficulty, item discrimination, and the guessing probability) on the reliability and construct validity (correlation with the latent trait being measured) of pretest, posttest, and gain scores was analytically examined using the 3-parameter logistic (3PL)…

This article describes a SAS macro to assess model fit of structural equation models by employing a test of the model-implied vanishing tetrads. Use of this test has been limited in the past, in part due to the lack of software that fully automates the test in a user-friendly way. The current SAS macro provides a straightforward method for…

Purpose: We investigated whether patient-centered instructions for chronic heart failure medications increase comprehension and memory for medication information in older adults diagnosed with chronic heart failure. Design and Methods: Patient-centered instructions for familiar and unfamiliar medications were compared with instructions for the…

An approach based on Skinner's (1957) theory of verbal behavior has been developed to understand and teach elementary communication skills to children with autism and developmental disabilities (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). However, few studies have directly examined the characteristics of emerging language in children with developmental…

The authors examined the potential differences between problem-based learning (PBL) and traditional instructional approaches in building knowledge of macroeconomic concepts and principles in high school students. Using data from 252 economics students at 11 high schools and controlling for individual characteristics, most notably verbal ability,…