This article describes and discusses a novel academic course founded by the Faculty of Welfare and Health Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel, which tried to establish an alternative interaction between graduate students and older persons as part of its graduate academic program. The course "Social Activism and Old Age: From Exclusion…

This paper introduces the concept of "pedagogy in practice" (PiP), referring to the immediate interaction between students' learning experiences and school's pedagogy and distinct from the pedagogy advocated "from above" by the school. We bring the concept of PiP into focus by analysing students' open-ended discourse about…

Since the 1980s an extensive research literature has investigated how to improve student success in higher education focusing on student outcomes such as retention, completion and employability. A parallel research programme has focused on how students engage with their studies and what they, institutions and educators can do to enhance their…

Context-based chemistry education aims to improve student interest and motivation in chemistry by connecting canonical chemistry concepts with real-world contexts. Implementation of context-based chemistry programmes began 20 years ago in an attempt to make the learning of chemistry meaningful for students. This paper reviews such programmes…

Little attention has been paid to teacher attitudes toward high-achieving culturally diverse student groups. This in-depth study focuses on the experience of Israeli teachers who tell the story of a decade and a half of educational work with their highly motivated, academically successful immigrant students from the Former Soviet Union. The paper…

A one-year follow-up study examined the role of developmental challenges, personality (dependency, self-criticism, and personal efficacy), and support systems in adaptation among Israeli emerging adults (N = 236) participating in a preparatory academic program. Participants were assessed during their enrollment in the preparatory academic program…

This study examined teachers' experience of autonomous motivation for teaching and its correlates in teachers and students. It was hypothesized that teachers would perceive various motivations posited by E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan's (2000) self-determination theory as falling along a continuum of autonomous motivation for teaching. Autonomous…

This study investigated the relations between early adolescents' academic motivational orientations and an aspect of quality of friendship: intimacy. Two-hundred and three Jewish-Israeli seventh grade students responded to surveys asking them about their academic achievement goals and about characteristics of their friendships. Variable-centered…

From a life-stage perspective, the purpose of this study was to examine the motivation of female students in midlife to enroll in an undergraduate or graduate program and the meaning they attach to higher education (HE) in general. An additional purpose was to reveal these women's subjective perceptions of the benefits they gained from HE at this…

This study examined the effect of loneliness, gender, and two dimensions of prospective life domains on adolescent future orientation. Future orientation was studied in four prospective domains: social relations, marriage and family, higher education and work and career. These domains are described in terms of two dimensions: theme (relational vs.…