Teachers are expected today to assess student understanding as an integral part of instruction, using a combination of various assessment methods and tools, among which are observing students solve problems in class and listening to their mathematical discussions. The aim of our study is to explore what it might mean for a teacher to hear students…

Elementary education students enrolled in an experimental mathematics course participated in this study. The course is taught using a social constructivist approach and is designed to improve students' mathematical problem-solving ability and deepen their understanding of mathematics. The research question for the present study is as follows: In…

The new 1?9 curriculum framework in Taiwan provides a remarkable change from previous frameworks in terms of the coverage of content and the powers of teachers. This study employs a modified repertory grid technique to investigate biology teachers' preferences with regard to six curriculum components. One hundred and eighty-five in-service and…

This research consisted of 3 studies, with a sample of over 3,000 Taiwanese college students, aimed at developing and validating a situation-specific Collectivist Coping Styles (CCS) inventory from an Asian perspective. The results from the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a stable 5-factor structure of the CCS: (a)…

This article traces the evolution of a quest for solving the problems involved in the analysis of multilevel data and the estimation of the value added effects of schools in influencing educational outcomes. The authors report the findings of two studies that followed several cohorts of students that were tested at two grade levels (Grade 3 and…

Background: Solving ill-structured problems is an important aspect in many professions, including the teaching profession. It is therefore appropriate to engage pre-service teachers in solving ill-structured problems. Aim: This study investigates the ill-structured problem-solving processes in an un-moderated asynchronous discussion for one group…

The IMMEX (Interactive Multi-Media Exercises) Web-based problem set platform enables the online delivery of complex, multimedia simulations, the rapid collection of student performance data, and has already been used in several genetic simulations. The next step is the use of these data to understand and improve student learning in a formative…

With the advancement of technology and new developments in other social aspects, education is faced with challenges to produce well-rounded citizens for the 21st century. Some of the important qualities for individuals to be successful in the new era include creativity, application, and cooperative skills. Basic education in China had demonstrated…

Lecture is a common presentation style that gives instructors a lot of control over topics and time allocation, but can limit active student participation and learning. This article presents some ideas to increase the level of student involvement in lecture. The examples and suggestions are based on the author's experience as a senior lecturer for…

This study examines candidate principals' perceptions and comments about female and male principals. Although the women are traditionally the majority among teachers, it is seen that they are in minority in management. According to the candidate principals who work in Turkish secondary schools, the gender factor is not important and there is no…

The effects of "Problem Solving" (Taymans & Parese, 1998) are compared across small diversion and prison samples for men and women. A second program, "Pathfinders" (Hansen, 1993), was compared to the Problem Solving program among incarcerated women offenders to determine whether its focus upon empowerment and relationships enhanced the effects of…

This paper describes research that explored the question of whether or not it is possible to characterise and teach a single type of educationally productive talk. We analysed and compared the quality of children's interactional strategies when jointly working on a reasoning task and a psycholinguistic task. The latter involved writing an…

In this study we investigated relationships between convergent and divergent thinking with an emphasis on fluency, originality, flexibility and elaboration in the mathematical domain. A related purpose was to examine relationships between problem types in mathematical tasks. The math section of a performance-based assessment was used to assess 857…

Purpose: To expose engineering students to using modern technologies, such as multimedia packages, to learn, visualize and solve engineering problems, such as in mechanics dynamics. Design/methodology/approach: A multimedia problem-solving prototype package is developed to help students solve an engineering problem in a step-by-step approach. A…

This paper discusses the role of reduction in computer science and describes a study on undergraduate students' perception of the concept of reduction. Specifically, based on an analysis of students answers to questions addressing different computer science topics, we present several findings regarding the ways in which undergraduate students…