This study describes the development of the Learning Center at the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Center was established to provide support for minority students taking pre-business courses required for entrance to the School, such as accounting, economics, and business statistics; to demonstrate positive affective…

This study compared academic delay of gratification (ADOG) among conditionally-admitted African-American, regularly-admitted African-American, and regularly-admitted white college students. A total of 44 conditionally-admitted African-American students, 43 regularly-admitted African-American students, and 273 regularly-admitted Caucasian students…

A study focused on the relationship between instructional strategies and students' reported meta-skill attainment in an adult education context. Using the data collected from 2,507 end-of-course surveys of students in the Graduate Studies in Education program at Indiana Wesleyan University, analyses were run to test for correlations between the…

Describes the research rationale for the developmental course offered to entering students at Upsala College (NJ) called "Precise Thinking." This skills-development program integrates reading, writing, and mathematical skills with underlying metacognitive processes to teach students perseverance and strategies for problem-solving and self-directed…

Sixty-two French-Canadian women undergraduates participated in a study analyzing the effects of private self-consciousness on attribution. Shows women with high private self-consciousness, when told they performed well, attributed success to more internal, stable, and controllable factors than other subjects. In no-outcome conditions, no…

Examines the theoretical and research perspectives (including metacognition, schema theory, and text structure) related to the direct instruction of comprehension at the college level for developmental readers. Concludes that many such strategies are not grounded in solid research bases and recommends that future research focus on the…

Through interviews and questionnaires explores five mature students' approaches to learning statistics from the theoretical perspective of activity theory. Analyses socio-historical factors relating to students' self-regulation of their cognitive activities and interpretation of the contexts affecting their approaches. Appendices include…

Four different methods of teaching--cooperative learning, class discussions, concept maps, and lectures--were integrated into a freshman-level general chemistry course to compare students' levels of participation. Findings support the idea that multiple modes of learning foster the metacognitive skills necessary for mastering general chemistry.…

This study addresses the need for research in three areas: (1) teachers' understandings of scientific inquiry; (2) conceptual understandings of evolutionary processes; and (3) technology-enhanced instruction using an inquiry approach. The purpose of this study was to determine in what ways "The Galapagos Finches" software-based materials created a…

The critical thinking curriculum used in the four-year business degree program at the Auckland Institute of Technology Faculty of Commerce in New Zealand is described. The design of the business program is modeled on the authors' view of critical thinking as concerned with the intellectual maturity of the whole person. Key intellectual standards…

This paper presents some of the overall findings of the Cooperative Reading Project (CRP), a collaboration between six teachers in a bilingual Spanish/English elementary school and a team of university researchers to examine and improve upon cooperative learning literacy instruction. The CRP took a social constructivist learning stance toward…

This review explores the factors of cognitive processing, style, and metacognitive organization as they contribute to academic success. Specific discussions consider aspects of short- and long-term memory, including how these affect learning and academic performance, and the keys to attaining long-term memory capability by involving redundancy,…

Gifted students' writing may exhibit stylistic dissonance--a mixture of basic writing features may coexist with features indicative of much higher levels of rhetorical control. A case study of an 11-year-old sixth grade student who attended a freshman composition course at an Arkansas university illustrates this dissonance. The poems and short…

Sixteen Family Practice faculty members completed ratings on 59 senior medical students after a 6-week primary care clerkship. Each student was rated by seven to ten faculty members and the chief residents who worked with them, resulting in a total of 353 ratings. The rating scale covered: (1) attainment of learning objectives; (2) progress during…

The relationship between intellectual ability, working method, and learning was investigated with simulations in both structured and unstructured learning environments. High- and low-intelligence college students' thinking-aloud protocols were analyzed on quality of working method. Results indicated that both intellectual ability and working…