This dissertation was designed to examine and evaluate the effectiveness of a Ninth-Grade Transition Program at a Rural High School in Central North Carolina. The ninth grade is a pivotal year that determines which students will prevail and which students will fail to finish high school (Hertzog, 2003). It is essential that schools put in place…

Discussions of one urban middle school group of students who were investigating scientific phenomena were analyzed; this study was conducted to discern if and how peer interaction contributes to learning. Through a social constructivist lens, case study methodology, we examined conceptual change among group members. Data about science talk was…

Nonstandard entry programs into higher education include worthy goals and problematic processes. Although effective practices in teacher education would seem to be well established, complications arise when good intentions intersect with university protocols, issues of power, history, rights, and cultural complexities. This article reports on an…

Both substantive (i.e. factual knowledge, concepts, laws and theories) and procedural knowledge (understanding and applying concepts such as reliability and validity, measurement and calibration, data collection, measurement error, the ability to interpret evidence and the like) are involved in carrying out an open-ended science investigation.…

Adopting a new technology is an important decision for many academic institutions. Colleges have had to upgrade technology or face diminishing enrollment as students choose to attend other, more responsive institutions. New and imaginative approaches to technology have been developed and implemented by faculty, support staff, and students to…

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the difference in depression between intellectually gifted and non-gifted secondary school children. After a detailed review of literature the following hypothesis was formulated; there would be a significant difference between intellectually gifted and non-gifted secondary school children on…

Giant freshwater prawn ("Macrobrachium rosenbergii" De Man) embryos can be cultured "in vitro" to hatching in 15% (v/v) artificial seawater (ASW). This technique can be applied as a bioassay for testing toxicity or for the effects of various substances on embryo development and can be used as a simple and low-cost model for…

In this study, the misconceptions emerged as a result of instruction were examined from the viewpoint of the Didactic Transposition Theory. To this end, two randomly selected sample groups (n = 33 and n = 31) from the students of two nearby schools in downtown Balikesir were included in the study. It was observed that different knowledge…

An exciting element of science fairs is that they give students the opportunity to explore various interests through scientific investigation. Many students, however, mistakenly think that all investigations are experiments. This lesson can help broaden students' conceptions of science. (Contains 1 resource.)

This study investigated the effects of personality on attitudes toward academic group work among a sample of 225 business students. Data were collected using pre-existing scales for measuring personality and attitudes toward academic group work. Specifically, the Neo-FFI scale was used to measure the five personality dimensions of openness,…

Motivation to teach is essential to educating all children in the public schools. This study examined the anticipated self-determination of pre-service teachers to teach in classroom settings that varied in the ethnic and racial composition of the students in the classes. Additionally the cultural responsiveness of participants was measured to…

This study investigated the perceptions of workplace safety held by industry leaders who were near completion of a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. This was a qualitative study that utilized interpretivism as the theoretical framework. The study sought to answer four research questions. (1) How do participants conceptualize…

The purpose of this phenomenological investigation was to increase understanding of the career perspectives of 12 Mexican American, re-entry women who were attending a community college. The questions guiding this investigation were: (a) How do Mexican American re-entry college women describe their career decision-making experiences, (b) What do…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes towards mathematics according to their learning styles. Two hundreds eighty one pre-service elementary school teachers were involved in this study. The researchers employed two types of instruments, Learning Style Inventory and Scale…

Empirical investigations on students' conceptions of cell biology indicate major misunderstandings of scientific concepts even after thorough teaching. Therefore, the main aim of our research project was to investigate students' difficulties in learning this topic and to study the impact of learning activities on students' conceptions. Using the…