Six independent study projects are offered to students in an introductory psychology course at the University of Houston. The projects include a term paper, book critique, independent research project, audio and/or visual demonstration, research assistance to a faculty member, and a community service option. The most popular of these projects is…

This study attempted to show that preparation for and use of an audiovideo dial-select information retrieval system in a new middle school could help to change the teacher's role from that of dispenser of information to guide in an independent learning situation. Because of unavoidable delays in the installation of the dial-select equipment, the…

A developmental project in a college psychology course has shown that the computer can be a useful instrument for individualizing student learning and testing by freeing instructors from clerical and test generation tasks. In successive stages, the computer was used for the batch generation of quizzes on each unit of the course, for on-line…

This ethnographic study investigated how first grade students used handheld computers to learn in collaboration with others throughout the learning process. This research focused specifically on how the use of handheld computers impacts students' learning outcomes and relates to technology standards. A qualitative methodology was used to capture…

The inclusion of online learning technologies into the higher education (HE) curriculum is frequently associated with the design and development of new models of learning. One could argue that e-learning even demands a reconfiguration of traditional methods of learning and teaching. One of the key elements of this transformational process is…

Project-based learning for students at the Open University, Great Britain, was studied through interviewing and the administration of a questionnaire. Group discussion interviews were conducted with approximately 200 students and individual interviews with about 50 part-time tutors who were responsible for the direct face-to-face contact arranged…

An Australian study compared stressors among freshman foreign and native students, primarily in business administration. Foreign students had significantly more difficulty adjusting to academic requirements and study needs, particularly study methods, independent study, language skills, participation, and time management, and had higher stress…

For the thirty-third year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. This is Volume #2 of the 33rd "Annual Proceedings of Selected Papers on the Practice of Educational Communications and Technology." This volume includes…

A survey of United States students studying and traveling abroad was conducted with a questionnaire distributed in the 1984 and 1985 applications for the International Student Identity Card. In 1984 all applications processed in New York were included in this study; in 1985 one out of every three applications was sampled. The total number of…

Biology I students (n=166) in a high school in southern Mississippi completed the Learning Styles Inventory, a 45-item instrument designed to measure preference for channel of learning (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic), sociological environment (individually or in groups), and mode of expression (oral or written). A three-way analysis of variance…

In order to assess the feasibility of a technologically enhanced education delivery, a Canadian community college offered an online course on HTML authoring. The instructor designed a Web site, which functioned as the "textbook", and updated it periodically according to lesson plans and student feedback. An electronic mailing list…

Eighty papers from a 1985 international conference on improving university teaching are presented. Topics include the following: personality problems of students; using computers in teaching; burnout, stress, and renewal of academic staff; improving teaching by evaluating teachers; teaching writing; curriculum development in management and applied…

A study of the relationship of learner characteristics to success in beginning English examined the language aptitude, learning motivation and attitudes, spatial relations, study habits, and years of English instruction of 97 seventh-grade students in a Thai government school. The analysis focused on these variables as they related to the…

To determine the relative contribution of team competition and peer group practice sessions to the effectiveness of a classroom instructional technique, Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT), 299 seventh grade mathematics students participated in an experiment varying reward system (team vs. individual competition) with practice mode (group vs.…

Previous research has shown that the majority of the characteristics of vocational education and training (VET) learners in Australia typically lie in the quadrant of "dependent" and "non-verbal," and preferred to learn from hands-on direct experience rather than through reading or listening. Workplace educational delivery…