An overview of the Council on Undergraduate Research's (CUR) programs and upcoming events that focus on faculty development to foster research at predominantly undergraduate institutions is provided. A CUR membership can help faculty members undertake and direct their own research with undergraduates.

A method designed to facilitate prediction of mechanism and products by developing critical thinking skills and reducing memorization is presented. The mechanistic disc method requiring students to utilize their understanding of charge stabilization, structural organic chemistry, and the fundamental mechanisms of aliphatic substitution and…

Exploratory focus group research with undergraduate students reveals a series of related tensions that students experience about vocational marketing and communication degrees that have been promoted to them primarily on the basis of job prospects and university location. We summarise these tensions in six themes: short versus long-term goals;…

Concern over students deemed "at-risk" constructs youth as deficient and deviant without considering the experiences of youth themselves. My interest in "at-risk" grows out of my previous work with youth, in various drama education contexts and the fact that youth have told me they found the label offensive. My research…

Exploring difficult issues can be the domain of drama and theatre. This article examines the processes of researching and workshopping an exploration of HIV-AIDS by a group of 20 undergraduate university students using playbuilding techniques. The importance of hegemony and the assimilation process become key issues in this classroom drama…

This paper reviews the role of ICT-based assessment in the light of the growing use of virtual learning environments in universities. Issues of validity, efficiency, type of response, and scoring are addressed. A major area of research is the automated scoring of text. Claims for automated formative assessment are queried, since the feedback of…

In this research, we consider how the instructional strategies of public school teachers interact with the achievement levels of their students. Slightly more than 1,000 teachers in schools broadly representative of public schools in the USA responded to a school climate survey. Of this number, data from 426 teachers were subjected to Rasch…

In response to the impact of information and communication technology on traditional business and commerce practices, and the empowerment of individuals by the growth of information available on the Internet, educators are challenged to adapt the curricula and delivery modes of educational programs for knowledge workers, such as tax accountants.…

Teachers' sense of efficacy has been shown to influence teachers' actions and student outcomes. This study explored self-efficacy beliefs among English as a Foreign Language teachers in selected schools in Venezuela. Data were collected through a survey administered to 100 teachers. The Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran &…

Medicine is an applied science, interpreting evidence and applying it to real life by using clinical reasoning skills and experience. COPT (clinically oriented physiology teaching) was incorporated in physiology instruction aiming to relate the study of physiology to real-life problems, to generate enthusiasm and motivation for learning, and to…

Government-imposed testing has been introduced in Canada to establish benchmarks, improve accountability, and measure achievement consistently. In this study 133 teachers from urban and rural Manitoba completed surveys (a response rate of 34%) to ascertain their attitudes toward mandated testing. Results indicated that most teachers expressed…

In the bookmark standard-setting procedure, judges place "bookmarks" in a reordered test booklet containing items presented in order of increasing difficulty. Traditionally, the bookmark difficulty location (BDL) is on the trait continuum where, for dichotomous items, there is a two-thirds probability of a correct response and, for a score of "k"…

Test-retest reliability of the Test of Variables of Attention (T.O.V.A.) was investigated in two studies using two different time intervals: 90 min and 1 week (plus or minus 2 days). To investigate the 90-min reliability, 31 school-age children (M = 10 years, SD = 2.66) were administered the T.O.V.A. then read ministered the test 90 min afterward.…

An experimental scale for the assessment of prison violence risk among maximum security inmates was developed from a logistic regression analysis involving inmates serving parole-eligible terms of varying length (n = 1,503), life-without-parole inmates (n = 960), and death-sentenced inmates who were mainstreamed into the general prison population…

During the past three decades, empirically supported strategies have been demonstrated for the training of competencies - highly specific skills and behaviors that are needed to complete a critical job task. The present article reviews several examples of competency-based training in human service programs and provides guidelines for the…