Several standardized and validated information literacy (IL) tests have been developed for use in U.S. post-secondary contexts, but fewer choices exist for schools outside of the U.S. In an earlier study (Cowan, Graham, & Eva, 2016) the authors explored IL testing at a Canadian university using the international version of the SAILS Cohort…

Concerns persist regarding high school students' chemistry learning. Learning chemistry is challenging because of chemistry's innate complexity and the need for students to construct associations between different, yet related representations of matter and its changes. Students should be taught to reason about and consider chemical phenomena using…

This study investigated the effect of cloze item practice on reading comprehension, where cloze items were either created by humans, by machine using natural language processing techniques, or randomly. Participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 302) took a pre-test, read a text, and took part in one of five conditions, Do-Nothing, Re-Read,…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of art therapy for teaching social skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The program we tested was structured to provide a therapeutic setting for children to discuss difficulties they experience in their social interactions, and give them…

Concept inventories (CI) are validated, research-based, multiple-choice tests, which are widely used to assess the effectiveness of pedagogical practices in bringing about conceptual change. In order to be a useful diagnostic tool, a CI must reflect only the student understanding of the conceptual material. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is…

We developed an online learning module called ''Organic Mechanisms: Mastering the Arrows'' to help students learn part of organic chemistry's language--the electron-pushing formalism. The module guides students to learn and practice the electron-pushing formalism using a combination of interactive videos, questions with instant feedback, and…

We studied the impact of clickers, also known as electronic student response systems, on the performance of students on two undergraduate finance courses. Consistent with some of the recent literature, we found that clickers have very little impact on student performance, as measured by final course grades. Further, we found that clickers do not…

Previous research has shown that speech-to-text (STT) software can support students in producing a given piece of writing. This is the 1st study to investigate the use of STT to teach a writing strategy. We pretested 45 Grade 5 students on argument writing and trained them to use STT. Students participated in 4 lessons on an argument writing…

Computer and smartphone-based applications for second language (L2) learning have become popular tools, being integrated in many classroom-based courses and adopted by the public at large. Yet, despite a significant body of research that suggests that individuals differ in their ability to learn L2, it is still unclear what factors predict…

This article investigates students' experiences of learning about privilege and oppression in the context of an introductory university course in civic engagement and global citizenship. Participants included 24 students enrolled in the course during either the 2013-2014 or the 2014-2015 academic year. The authors collected data through pretests,…

This study explored the effects of learner response systems (clickers) on the development of vocabulary knowledge in English (L2). Sixty-one Grade 8 learners divided in two groups participated in the experiment, which followed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest research design. While the experimental group received a clicker-based treatment via…

Despite calls to address global challenges through community engagement, engineers are not formally prepared to engage with communities. Little research has been done on means to address this "engagement gap" in engineering education. We examine the efficacy of an intensive, two-day Community Engagement Workshop for engineers, designed…

It is well known that university students with ineffective learning strategies and low motivation are at risk for lowered grades and stress. Given the needs of these students, Mount St. Vincent University developed the Student Success Course (SSC), a 14-week intervention that offers instruction in learning strategies, selfmanagement, and…

Today's society places a lot of pressure on schools, teachers, and students to improve test scores. This paper discusses the possibility of using mathematical manipulatives to improve student test scores and students' attitudes towards mathematics. Forty-three Grade 2 students with age ranges between six and eight from a rural town in Saskatchewan…

This study addressed computer-supported collaborative scientific inquiries in remote networked schools (Quebec, Canada). Three dyads of Grade 5-6 classrooms from remote locations across the province collaborated using the knowledge-building tool Knowledge Forum. Customized scaffold supports embedded in the online tool were used to support student…