Recent emphasis on learning biology through scientific investigations has focused instruction on understanding and using scientific evidence. To unpack the complexities of evidentiary reasoning, here we present a novel laboratory investigation for teaching the Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) in an introductory biology laboratory course that was…

Skidmore and Thompson (this issue of "Educational Researcher") imply that a graph was changed with the intent to promote more experimental research in education. In this response, the author presents evidence that challenges this implication and concludes that the changed graph does not accurately capture the "declining" trend of experimental…

Testing aids, including student-prepared testing aids (a.k.a., cheat sheets or crib notes) and open-textbook exams, are common practice in post-secondary assessment. There is a considerable amount of published research that discusses and investigates the impact of these testing aids. However, the findings of this research are contradictory and…

The study investigates the relationship between impact of electronic resources and its usage in academic libraries in Ghana: evidence from Koforidua Polytechnic & All Nations University College, Ghana. The study was a quantitative approach using questionnaire to gather data and information. A valid response rate of 58.5% was assumed. SPSS…

This study focused on first-semester college students, investigating (a) indirect effects of aggregate alcohol use on grade point average (GPA) through academic effort (skipping class and time on schoolwork) and (b) daily effects of alcohol use on reduced effort. Eighty students reported daily alcohol use and academic effort (skipping class and…

In response to demands from industry and the profession for more graduates, first-year engineering numbers have grown considerably over the last decade, matched by an increasing diversity of academic backgrounds. In order to support first-year students effectively, and ensure the courses they take remain appropriately pitched, the academic…

Following the publication of the higher education white paper increasing entry tariff and widening participation have become even more important issues for universities. This report examines the relationship between entry tariff and undergraduate achievement in Biosciences at the University of Exeter. We show that, whilst there is a significant…

This article addresses the concept of "industrial interests" and examines its role in a topical controversy about a large research grant from a private foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, to the University of Copenhagen. The authors suggest that the debate took the form of a "public trial" where the grant and close(r)…

The goal of research on how letter identity and order are perceived during reading is often characterized as one of "cracking the orthographic code." Here, we suggest that there is no orthographic code to crack: Words are perceived and represented as sequences of letters, just as in a dictionary. Indeed, words are perceived and represented in…

Pre-service teachers around the world need to develop their content knowledge of scientific evidence to meet the requirements of recent school curriculum developments which prepare pupils to be scientifically literate. This research reports a replication study in Turkey of an intervention originally carried out with pre-service primary teachers in…

When participants respond to auditory and visual stimuli, responses to audiovisual stimuli are substantially faster than to unimodal stimuli (redundant signals effect, RSE). In such tasks, the RSE is usually higher than probability summation predicts, suggestive of specific integration mechanisms underlying the RSE. We investigated the role of…

In this study, the authors represent an exploratory investigation of current preparation of preservice teachers related to response to intervention (RTI) in institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the Office of Special Education Program (OSEP) Regional Resource and Federal Centers (RRFCs) North Central Region and Pennsylvania. In this study,…

Background: Unhealthy eating contributes to morbidity in adolescents and college students and is an antecedent of premature mortality in adulthood. It has been suggested that the increase in independence (i.e., living away from parents) of adolescents contributes to their poor eating behaviors. Some literature reports that specific parenting…

We developed an instrument to systematically investigate student conceptual understanding of the relationships between the directions of net force, velocity, and acceleration in one dimension and report on data collected on the final version of the instrument from over 650 students. Unlike previous work, we simultaneously studied all six possible…

The equal ability distribution assumption associated with the equivalent groups equating design was investigated in the context of a selection test for admission to higher education. The purpose was to assess the consequences for the test-takers in terms of receiving improperly high or low scores compared to their peers, and to find strong…