The Listening Partners project examined rural mothers' development of a sense of the power of their own minds and voices and the relationship between this sense of power and mothers' parenting strategies and their children's development. Two cohorts of 60 women from a rural, impoverished region of Vermont participated in the program. Half the…

Nineteen papers concerning various aspects of distance education and distance education research are presented in this document. The papers are: (1) "Introduction, Celebrating Difference in Research in Distance Education" (Terry Evans); (2) "Discourse or Discord? A Dilemma of Distance Education" (Philip Juler); (3)…

Current research and learning theory suggest that a hierarchy of proportional reasoning exists that can be tested. Using G. Vergnaud's four complexity variables (structure, content, numerical characteristics, and presentation) and T. E. Kieren's model of rational number knowledge building, an epistemic model of proportional reasoning was…

This volume presents a case for science education from a feminist perspective. Feminist science teaching is concerned with questions that emerge from the intersections of the pedagogical, the disciplinary, and the personal with the political, social, and historical dimensions of each of these. It is also concerned with how knowledge of the ways in…

This yearbook is the seventh for the Mathematics Education Research in Finland series and contains ten articles presented at the decennial jubilee colloquium. The first three articles discuss Constructivism both in general and with regard to mathematics education. Analysis is directed to the origins of constructivism, to the learning of…

This study of student teachers' beliefs was conducted to track changes in their beliefs about teaching and examine the role of academic and practical experiences in modifying these beliefs. The primary focus of this paper is the evolution of methodology, with extracts from three case studies presented to illustrate the direction the research is…

This four-part volume addresses design principles for introducing democratic forms in workplaces, educational institutions, and social institutions, based on a trend toward participative democracy in Australia. Following an introduction, part I sets the context with two papers: "The Agenda for the Next Wave" and "Educational…

The 23 original essays on sentence combining in this volume range in focus from classroom methodology and effectiveness, through theoretical issues and syntactic constructions, to current issues in the field. The essays and their authors are as follows: (1) "The Role of the Elaborated Dominant Nominal in the Measurement of Conceptual and…

The five chapters of this book discuss children's development and learning. Chapter 1, by Barbara Z. Presseisen, raises fundamental questions about schooling and learning. Chapter 2, by Robert J. Sternberg, presents a theory of intellectual styles and discusses its relevance for education. The theory concerns the ways in which people use their…

This paper attempts to fill some of the gaps in the literature (on reflective teaching), delving further into the meaning and functions of reflection. First, it considers the origins of the term and some aspects of its development. It then analyzes and critiques some of the current notions of reflection. Beginning the process of a more rigorous…

This paper makes a critical exploration into the core epistemological assumptions of mainstream television effects research and explains why the mainstream study of the cognitive impact of television on children suffers from two reductionist tendencies, i.e., television is understood by most researchers to be solely a technical medium, and most…

There has been a marked increase in recent years in research studies of the alternative "frameworks of thought" that learners bring to the interpretation of what they meet in school science. Provided are summaries of papers and discussions from a meeting which critically reviewed the methods being used in such research and their…

One of the goals of science education is to foster critical and scientific thinking skills. However, if the meaning of the terms "thinking critically" or "thinking scientifically" is not clear, these phrases will become vacuous slogans beyond translation in teaching methods and curriculum materials. Therefore, the fundamental aspect of these terms…

The results of interviews of students of medicine, business administration, and engineering concerning their perceptions of their professional education's relevance to actual professional work, the nature of learning and knowledge, and worldwide economic and technological development are presented and discussed. (MSE)

This study investigated the effects of two sequences of instruction--theory-to-application and application-to-theory--on medical students' cognitive preferences in preclinical science teaching. Results indicate that presenting an example of the clinical application of biochemical theory before presenting the theory itself increased students'…