This study aims to explore an educational learning environment that supports students to learn conceptual modelling with the unified modelling language (UML). In this study, we call the describing models "UML programming." In this paper, we show an educational UML programming environment for science, technology, engineering, art, and…

Mobile devices are being intensively used by the Portuguese youth in their daily life, but not in school activities. Despite this gap, research shows that technology can promote student learning in non-high education contexts. This paper comprises a survey study where mobile learning is analyzed through the eyes of 244 students attending the 2nd…

This study examined different approaches to integrating engineering practices in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum units. These various approaches were correlated with student outcomes on engineering assessment items. There are numerous reform documents in the USA and around the world that emphasize the need to…

In this article, the authors provide a synopsis of the 2014 Children's Literature Assembly (CLA) Workshop. The Workshop explored how fiction and nonfiction children's and young adult's literature create opportunities for in-depth learning in the content areas. Participants had the opportunity to hear the stories of authors and illustrators of…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of Quick Response (QR) codes and mobile devices in the context of Finnish basic education. The feasibility was analyzed through a mobile learning framework, which includes the core characteristics of mobile learning. The study is part of a larger research where the aim is to develop a…

Current educational reform in K-12 schools in this nation is much driven by the No Child Left Behind Act. One central goal of NCLB is to "bring all students (including special education children) up to grade level in reading and math, to close the achievement gap and to hold schools accountable for results"(ed.gov). Varied innovative…

We use value-added models to calculate measures of effectiveness for new elementary school teachers in Florida between 2001-02 and 2005-06, then compare the attrition and mobility patterns of more and less effective teachers overall and across various types of schools. While we do not find evidence that schools are disproportionately losing their…

The study-in-progress examines the treatment of the U.S. Constitution in U.S. history textbooks at the fifth, eighth, and eleventh grade levels. The study focuses on how textbook authors treat: (1) the background and historical setting from which the U.S. Constitution emerged; (2) the writers of the Constitution and the process they went through…

This study explores the potential effectiveness of a new procedure for identifying and studying certain of the cognitive processes used during problem solving. The procedure is used in an attempt to categorize the types of conceptual thinking problem solvers employ, to study trial-and-error behavior, and to investigate problem solvers' abilities…

A study explored the question of the development of recall for narrative and informative texts. Subjects, 60 5th- 8th-, and 11th-grade students from a rural area of Quebec, representing all levels of achievement, were presented with an informative text and a narrative text. Results indicated that: (1) the narrative text elicited a longer recall…

This study examines preadolescents' choice of admired individuals and the reasons given in support of that admiration in two different cultures. Students in the fourth and fifth grades of a public school in East Brunswick, New Jersey and in a Jewish parochial school in the same community comprised the American sample of 100 boys and 115 girls. A…

A recognition paradigm was employed to assess developmental changes in memory for within-sentence (premise) and between-sentence (inference) information from 16 brief prose stories. Eleventh graders retained significant amounts of both premise and inference information, while fifth graders showed substantial retention only for premise information.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential role of peer influences in contributing to the relative underachievement of girls in mathematics. Upper middle class, suburban New Jersey students (n=172 in grades 5, 8, and 11) were asked to express their attitudes toward hypothetical peers displaying strong interests and abilities in…

Examines the effects of a 10-week program designed to heighten fifth- and eighth-grade students' awareness of information explicitly stated in text, implied by text, and found only in the individual's knowledge base. (FL)

The usefulness of small-scale interview studies to explore the validity of science achievement tests in several formats was studied with 141 high school students and 49 fifth and sixth graders. Results, which provided evidence of test validity, also support the use of small-scale qualitative interviews in test validation. (SLD)