Interviews with eight adult students who completed portfolios illustrate how the process increased their awareness of professional accomplishments, enabled self-discovery and empowerment, helped them recognize the influence of mentors, and fostered deeper reflection. Results show how portfolios can promote holistic learning by connecting learning,…

Discusses how the use of prior learning assessment, especially with portfolios, can enable workers to take greater responsibility for their career development and shift emphasis from employment to employability. (Contains 31 references.) (SK)

Investigated the effect of prior knowledge and strategy training on monitoring accuracy among college students, comparing debilitative, no-impact, and facilitative hypotheses. Overall, knowledge acquired through brief strategy training improved performance, confidence, and monitoring accuracy independent of general ability and general mathematics…

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) information on 38 Australian universities' websites was analyzed, with the following results: (1) research on universities' use of technology for student-institution interaction was lacking; (2) terms and definitions used for RPL were inconsistent, hard to find, or required a high level of knowledge; and (3)…

Reviewed 183 written sources related to prior knowledge. Findings show that prior knowledge generally had positive effects on student performance, but effects varied by assessment method. Discusses the implications of assessment measures when examining the effects of prior knowledge. (Contains 207 references.) (SLD)

Addresses two interrelated factors needed to be resolved at the commencement of any Critical Literacy approach in the mainstream subject classroom--the nature of the texts presented and the concept of resistance. Lists three strategies that help to build background knowledge: activating existing prior knowledge; building on that knowledge from a…

This paper investigates teachers use of prior knowledge in whole class teaching contexts and draws on data from an ESRC-funded study. The paper explores how teachers conceptualise prior knowledge, principally as that which has been taught in school. It demonstrates strong teacher awareness of how the teaching under consideration fits with learning…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two types of maps (generative vs. completed) and the amount of prior knowledge (high vs. low) on well-structured and ill-structured problem-solving performance. Forty-four undergraduates who were registered in an introductory instructional technology course participated in the study.…

This research demonstrates how prior knowledge may allow for qualitative differences in representation of texts about controversial issues. People often experience a memory bias in favor of information with which they agree. In several experiments it was found that individuals with high prior knowledge about the topic were better able to recall…

This study assessed whether high functioning readers with autism are capable of drawing on prior knowledge during reading. Readers with autism and matched normal readers read ambiguous texts that described well-known historical events. The presence of an informative or noninformative title and primer texts that explicitly described the referenced…

Two experiments were conducted (a) to evaluate how providing background information at test may benefit retrieval and (b) to further examine how providing background information prior to study influences encoding. Half of the participants read background information prior to study, and the other half did not. In each group, half were presented…

In recent years, memory-based and explanation-based theories have dominated the discourse processing literature. Numerous studies have been conducted to show support for each of the two views. Most of these studies have manipulated factors in the episodic memory trace of texts, without a great deal of focus on how general world knowledge impacts…

The American Association of Colleges and Universities reports that over 50% of the students entering colleges and universities are academically under prepared; that is, according to Miller and Murray (2005), students "lack basic skills in at least one of the three fundamental areas of reading, writing, and mathematics" (paragraph 4). Furthermore,…

This briefing paper endeavours to highlight the challenges facing refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom in accessing education, training and employment. It does not claim to cover all the issues but is intended as a starting point for providers of adult learning and/or advice. It initially sets out the facts about definitions and…

Many diversity courses that prepare pre-service teachers do not address the significance or the impact of language barriers on linguistically diverse learners. Often time, new and veteran teachers construct their bilingual and/or bidialectical students as others and are unaware of how to use their students' social, cultural, and political…