Advanced undergraduate students struggle with executing complete research projects that involve data collection and analysis. Research indicates that engaging in undergraduate research is a high-impact practice. The American Sociological Association recommends that sociology majors engage in research beyond their research methods and statistics…

Spatial thinking skills are competencies individuals will need in their lives in order to know and understand the world and to perceive the space correctly. In order for individuals to have these competencies, effective training in the development of spatial thinking skills should occur. Spatial thinking skills can be acquired through…

This paper overviewed some of the research that had already been conducted in schools to support student wellbeing and reported back on research that the author had conducted in her own school, evaluating an intervention that aimed to help Year 12 students cope better with stress. The results showed a small but significant improvement in students'…

This article reports on part of a mixed-methods study framed by sociocultural theory and aimed at assessing the impact of an intervention to promote metalinguistic awareness in language study abroad sojourners. Participants utilized a social media platform as a space to develop personalized e-portfolios for the purpose of in-depth metalinguistic…

This article recounts three studies that portray an evolution from research examining the effects of researcher-designed instructional interventions to research examining the impact of helping teachers to design their own instructional interventions. Study 1 investigated the effects of an instructional treatment designed by the research team on…

The development of collocational knowledge is important for foreign language learners; unfortunately, learners often have difficulties producing proper collocations in the target language. Among the various ways of collocation learning, the DDL (data-driven learning) approach encourages the independent learning of collocations and allows learners…

Devastating floods in 2007 across western England resulted in legislative changes which have placed increased responsibility on local government for managing and mitigating local flood risk. For these changes to be effective, professional stakeholders need to understand fundamental concepts in flood science of which they may have no prior…

This qualitative study investigated how third-grade students from low-income families talked about target vocabulary words when asked to create a "VoiceThread" publication. "VoiceThread" is a web-based publication tool that allows students to post pictures and attach voice-recordings to each picture. There were three student…

The number of students in the United States choosing science, technology, engineering or mathematics careers is declining at a time when demand for these occupations is rapidly increasing. Numerous efforts have been undertaken to reverse this trend, yet results are uncertain. One's attitude is key to many choices one makes, and this includes, for…

This study compares the effects of two methods of teaching--teacher-centered and cooperative learning--on students' science achievement and use of social skills. The sample consists of 163 female elementary science students in 8 intact grade 5 classes who were assigned to 2 instructional methods and were taught an identical science unit by 4…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the 2009-2010 USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) on fruit intake and other behaviors related to fruit and vegetable consumption among Wisconsin fourth- and fifth-grade students. Methods: Participants were fourth- and fifth-grade from one FFVP school (n = 51)…

It is a common view that developing teachers' competence to restructure or reframe their knowledge and beliefs is inevitably a complex challenge. This paper reports on a research project with the aim to develop science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) through their participation in a learning study. A learning study is a…

This paper describes a framework for measuring student learning gains and engagement in a Computer Science 1 (CS 1) / Information Systems 1 (IS 1) course. The framework is designed for a CS1/IS1 course as it has been traditionally taught over the years as well as when it is taught using a new pedagogical approach with Web services. It enables the…

This paper reports on teachers' use of concept mapping as an alternative assessment strategy in advanced level biology classes and its effects on students' cognitive skills on selected biology concepts. Using a mixed methods approach, the study employed a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design involving 156 students and 8 teachers from…

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that is commonly used for guiding the construction and delivery of instruction intended to support all students. In this study, we used a related model to guide creation of a multimedia-based instructional tool called content acquisition podcasts (CAPs). CAPs delivered vocabulary instruction…