Describes a study of secondary school students in Nigeria to determine whether use of musical accompaniment on videotape recordings used in instruction of economic geography had any effects on students' learning. Results offer inconclusive differences in effect between video instruction accompanied by music and video instruction without music.…

Describes the development of a method of identifying motivational and educational attributes through student reports of what they like and what they perceive they are learning. Applications of the method to microcomputer software and traditional classroom activities are compared. (23 references) (MBR)

The needs and motivation of short-term ESL students and immigrants are contrasted, and the wide variety of programs and services needed for immigrant English instruction is emphasized. Aspects of ESL instruction that need changing or restructuring include adult and community education, teacher training and examination, and innovative educational…

Examined cognitive competencies and motivation in economically advantaged and disadvantaged preschoolers and kindergartners over a two-year period. Found that disadvantaged children had poorer cognitive scores than advantaged children. Cognitive gains were equal after one or two years in school, with socioeconomic status (SES) differences…

Presents findings relating to a study on pupils' perceptions of the in-school foreign language learning experience. The study is part of a longitudinal study on the motivational perspectives of secondary pupils learning German. (Author/VWL)

The purpose of this study was to identify cognitive and non-cognitive variables that will predict a student's ability to achieve success in the lowest level developmental mathematics course at San Jacinto College. The study examined the ability of cognitive variables (standardized entrance examinations, high school grade point average, and type of…

This collection contains three studies of the relationship between incentives, learning, and employability. The first study, "Incentives, Learning, and Employability," by John Bishop, models students' choices concerning what to learn and how much effort to spend learning it in terms of the outcome of a comparison of benefits and expected costs and…

This study investigated whether secondary school students of varied backgrounds, enrolled at a private school developed for the purpose of integrating computers into all aspects of the curriculum and cultivating self-motivated learners, impose their existing motivational sets on computer programming, and whether instructional settings and…

A Dallas County consortium study investigated use of the Control Data Basic Skills Learning System (computer-based education) as a means for providing a comprehensive, high quality program of individualized instruction in reading, mathematics, and language arts. It also examined issues related to the motivation of students whose training was…

Learning-disabled sixth through eighth grade students (n=25) received vocabulary instruction involving matching negation prefixes to root words. The students used an instructional computer game or a computer program that operated identically but without game features. Both programs produced equal gains in task skill, but the game produced higher…

A survey of graduates (n=87) of the University of New Mexico's conventional medical program and its parallel problem-based curriculum (n=33) found graduates of the latter much more likely to work in medically underserved areas and publicly funded health care settings, care for nonpaying patients, and identify patient problems and curiosity as…

Compares and contrasts the approaches to mathematics in Montessori schools and traditional schools. Suggests that in a traditional curriculum, math is studied as a separate subject and isolated discipline, in an abstract format, with the entire group of children moving together through the prescribed curriculum. In contrast, the Montessori school…

This article reports an investigation into the factors that facilitate language learning. The first strand examines whether motivation is a predictor of as is widely accepted. In order to confirm this, Grade 10 students' motivation level was measured using two questions. Language gains were also measured and compared with the motivation level. The…

Although Allan Bloom in "The Closing of the American Mind" and Mike Rose in "Lives on the Boundary" reveal an almost endless list of obvious differences of perspective on literacy and higher education in America, both take divergent yet similar routes to create a permanent place for liberal education. Both Bloom and Rose use…

The Graduate Information Survey instrument was designed to gather a variety of biographic and demographic data, as well as data on the students' college experiences, career plans, and attitudes. Data are presented on the characteristics of 1972 graduates from public and private universities. Seventeen four-year colleges and universities provided…