This qualitative research study examined the experiences of students who have been academically successful within a large, urban school district, specifically the Boston Public School District. The study sought both to uncover specific factors within individuals, homes, schools, and communities that promote academic success and to capture the…

This hermeneutic phenomenological study inquired about the challenges and successes of eight university students diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder at a university in the southeastern United States. The data collection methods involved documentation, questionnaires, focus groups, and individual interviews. The analysis of data…

This dissertation offers a critique of current approaches to postsecondary vocational education. It concludes that the traditional apprenticeship and didactic model leads to inadequate preparation of students for independent thinking and problem solving. An alternative model is proposed that uses "democratic education" principles. These include…

This paper reports the development of a theory surrounding the use of coping strategies in students with different approaches to study. It represents the development of an earlier study in which 20 interviews were conducted of women distance learners who had previously responded to a survey concerning their experiences of distance learning. The…

Describes an investigation of student approaches to study and briefly relates the results to the need for instructional improvement. Open University students in England were interviewed to determine their study habits and two approaches were identified: deep-level (relating ideas and constructing meaning from learning materials) and surface-level…

Discusses the results of interviews conducted with 20 women distance learners from community nursing disciplines at the University of Wolverhampton (United Kingdom) that investigated relationships between approaches to study, learning styles and strategies, and materials design, and how these impact on the need for support and guidance in distance…

The current stage in an on-going research program of student learning is summarized. With two more years to run, provisional research provides the beginnings of a model of student learning which is neither static nor mechanistic. Recent research has placed emphasis on describing how students learn and how learning is affected by the academic…

A distance education system may be viewed in terms of intrapersonal and interpersonal instructional dialogues that mediate the learning and instructional resources that enable such dialogues. Instructional resources include self-instruction texts, tutorial sessions, instructor availability, Web sites, and more. This study investigated the kinds of…