This article describes elaboration in "literary letters" (Atwell, 1984, 1987) written by developmental reading students. Nineteen community college students received instruction in "elaborative thought patterns," or types of elaboration, to improve the quality of their responses to popular fiction. This instruction was part of…

The goal of this study was to understand the roles of goal orientation and self-efficacy when learning from worked examples. A Web-based learning environment, used as a component of a traditional undergraduate chemistry course, served as the context for the study. Goal orientations were derived from Elliot and McGregor's (2001) achievement goals…

This study analyzes computer self-efficacy for two independent samples of students enrolled in an introduction to information systems course in 1996 and 2006. We administered two validated and frequently employed measures of general computer self-efficacy to each group of students and collected demographic and computer-use data. Our findings…

Feminist theorists have suggested that feminism provides a number of benefits for women, particularly regarding self-evaluations. However, most studies have conflated feminist attitudes and feminist identity. The main goal of this study was to assess the differential relationships of feminist attitudes and feminist identity to self-efficacy. Four…

This study investigated Turkish preservice, elementary teachers' personal mathematics teaching efficacy (PMTE), and science teaching efficacy (PSTE) beliefs at the end of their teacher education program. A majority of the participants believed they were well prepared to teach both elementary mathematics and science, but their PSTE scores were…

Notwithstanding the growth of online learning, little is known about the personal factors that predict student decisions to enroll in online courses. This study examined the relations between several personal factors and students' choice of instructional format. After completing an online course, service academy undergraduates (N = 564) completed…

This study is designed to address aspects of self-regulation and self-efficacy as they relate to critical issues in the design and evaluation of online learning programs. It begins with a discussion of the rapid growth of distance learning programs at all levels and across virtually all disciplines of educational programming. Much of this…

Much of the work in academic writing has focused on the cognitive rather than the affective and social aspects involved in project-based writing. Emphasis in past research has been on skills and processes of writing rather than on affective factors such as motivation, attitudes, feelings or social factors involving intrapersonal and interpersonal…

Much research (Ma, 1999; Cohen & Leung, 2004; English, 2003) has been done on mathematics education and pre-service teachers with special emphasis on how the mathematics is taught and the psychology of the pre-service teachers. While there is concern among North American mathematicians that mathematics instruction in K-12 grades needs to be…

The relations among school ability, self-efficacy, learning approach, and metacognition were examined in a path model. Questionnaires measuring these constructs were administered to 194 Filipino college students. Path analysis was used to determine the effects of school ability on self-efficacy and learning approaches, and in turn, the effects of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate measures of retention, self-efficacy, and teaching style in a college based law enforcement program versus an agency based law enforcement academy on the west coast through survey methods. A total of 35 law enforcement based academy instructors (i.e., Modesto) and 30 college based academy instructors…

In times of uncertainty and change where the job market is fluid and the U.S. economy is weak, students need to feel empowered to construct their lives and forge their career paths. Constructivism has been suggested as one way to empower people. The current study explored outcomes in constructivist career courses using a quasi-experimental…

This study examined how learners construct textbase and situation model knowledge in hypertext computer-based learning environments (CBLEs) and documented the influence of specific self-regulated learning (SRL) tactics, prior knowledge, and characteristics of the learner on posttest knowledge scores from exposure to a hypertext. A sample of 160…

The purpose of this phenomenological investigation was to increase understanding of the career perspectives of 12 Mexican American, re-entry women who were attending a community college. The questions guiding this investigation were: (a) How do Mexican American re-entry college women describe their career decision-making experiences, (b) What do…

This paper explores the relationships between the development of expertise and transitions. It sets out what we know about the development of expertise, changes in the brain as expertise develops, and how transitions between different learning contexts and the challenges that they present may impact on developing expertise. It sets out a series of…