This document presents the proceedings of the 17th Annual Research Forum held June 29, 2012, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included herein are the following 25 action research papers: (1) "Reading and Writing": A Study Comparing the Strengths of Peer Review and Visible Author Writing Strategies (Elizabeth Behar); (2)…

Computer games are no longer just for entertainment; they have also become a useful instructional strategy for acquiring knowledge. When games are used for purposes other than strict entertainment they become serious games. The goal of serious games is to enable the player to learn a task, master a strategy or develop a skill. Serious games can be…

This paper draws on findings from a major research project conducted between 1998 and 2000 on meanings of reconciliation in the school education sector. Using data collected from surveys and drawing from the community context in which schools exist, it explores and analyses meanings of reconciliation within school communities when the discourse of…

Influenced by worldwide globalization forces new structures of control have emerged in Mexico at the school level, and career ladders reward teachers' compliance with testing and training schemes; nevertheless the long-standing institutions of initial teacher education continue to show a strong resistance to change. Increased accountability is…

This study examined an innovative approach to student teaching, where pairs of secondary teacher candidates worked together under the guidance of a single mentor teacher. Like studies of partnered student teachers at the elementary level, our study found that paired secondary student teacher candidates developed a more intense and effective…

This study evaluates the effects of employing the linear, normalizing, and arcsine transformation methods for constructing scale scores on the Basic Competence Test (BCTEST). Tests in three subject areas (Chinese, English, and Mathematics) were studied using the data of test administrations from 2001 to 2003. The resulting scale scores for each…

Objective: No published studies have examined childhood abuse and neglect in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). This study examined the prevalence and clinical correlates of abuse and neglect in individuals with this disorder. Methods: Seventy-five subjects (69.3% female, mean age = 35.4 +/- 12.0) with DSM-IV BDD completed the Childhood Trauma…

Recent assessment research joining cognitive psychology and psychometric theory has introduced a new technology, item generation. In algorithmic item generation, items are systematically created based on specific combinations of features that underlie the processing required to correctly solve a problem. Reading comprehension items have been more…

This study documents literature discussions between groups of teacher education students in two geographically and demographically different universities. Students from an education methods course at each site discussed "The Friendship" by Mildred Taylor with one another as part of a distance reader response project. The project was designed to…

This study compared retrospective reports of childhood sexual and physical abuse as assessed by two measures: the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), which uses a Likert-type scaling approach, and the Computer Assisted Maltreatment Inventory (CAMI), which employs a behaviorally specific means of assessment. Participants included 1,195…

The purpose of this study was to describe the practice motivation and regulation of sixth-grade instrumentalists (11-12 years of age). A sample of 224 US band and orchestra students, representing 85 elementary schools, completed a 36-item practice inventory and produced two narratives depicting a typical practice session and a practice episode…

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of input-based instruction, consciousness-raising instruction (the consciousness-raising task only) and consciousness-raising instruction with feedback (the consciousness-raising task + reactive explicit feedback) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 45 Japanese…

Literary hypertext has often been acknowledged as the embodiment of poststructuralist literary theory (e.g. Coover, 1992; Landow, 1997; Bolter, 2001). The only literary medium that is produced, edited, published and received electronically, it encourages readings that defy the conventionally linear decoding process. With respect to text…

In this article, the story of 11 male psychotherapeutic patients with low self-esteem is told within the context of the research process. The literature suggests that the concept of "self-esteem" has a significant influence on the way an individual experiences his/her world. Therefore, the meaning that the psychotherapeutic patients…

Aims: Cognitive therapies are increasingly being offered by clinical psychologists to people with intellectual disabilities. This paper reviews some of the factors that influence people's readiness to engage in cognitive therapy. Literature review: Limited verbal ability, psychological-mindedness (particularly in relation to the understanding of…