The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…

In California, the James Irvine Foundation created ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career to promote multiple pathways that link to the state's 15 major industry sectors. The ConnectEd Network of Schools, a demonstration project supported by Irvine, plays a critical role in expanding student options through multiple pathways and…

Student "affiliation," also referred to as "engagement," "involvement," "identification," "connectedness," participation," and "bonding" with the school is linked to student success,and a lack of affiliation is directly connected to students' reasons for dropping out of school. Educational reformers and school leaders are beginning to turn their…

This case study of a preschool boy with Asperger's syndrome focuses on the use of video instruction for the purpose of teaching skills required for participation in classroom activities. After the classroom teacher identified four skill areas needing improvement (circle time, sharing, choosing centers, and singing), short video clips of…

The intent of the authors in preparing this paper is to compare and contrast the roles of Institutional Research in informing decision making and governance in higher education. Using a case study format the authors will provide an example of a research project conducted within each of the following sectors of United States higher education…

This study examined ease of reading, comprehension, and recall and preference for the same scientific content under two conditions: an informational text and a fictional narrative text. Seventy-four third and fourth graders were assessed individually around the reading of fictional narrative and informational texts that were about either snails or…

Rapid technological advances in the areas of telecommunications, computer technology and the Internet have made available to tutors and learners in the domain of online learning, a broad array of tools that provide the possibility to facilitate and enhance learning to higher levels of critical reflective thinking. Computer mediated communication…

There is a large body of research in studies of schooling, particularly ethnographic case studies, which posits that collective action among students undermines engagement in school and contributes to educational inequality. In this paper I review studies of engagement from a social identity theory perspective. To what extent can collective action…

As debate continues around the nature and values of education, it is important to ask the question of what factors motivate a student to engage with the ends of an educational institution. In this paper, a broad, holistic view of learner motivation, derived from Aristotelian ethics, is used to provide a model to drive institutional change.…

An important facet of effective Web-based instructional design is the consideration of learning activities to stimulate students' learning motivation. In order to create a motivating interaction environment, the design of motivational strategies to foster student interest in learning is essential. The study employed Keller's ARCS Motivational…

While much discussion about student success as it relates to access, equity, and underpreparedness at the collegiate level is taking place nationally and statewide, a strong and specific concern prompted some of the faculty at Pasadena City College (PCC), a large urban community college located northeast of downtown Los Angeles, to address the…

This paper reports on a study that employed metacognition and social cognition theoretical frameworks to explore and interpret students' views of their cognitive roles and the nature of the mechanisms that they considered influenced and mediated their learning within small group contexts. An instrumental interpretive case study methodology was…

This study sought to better understand search performance using an online portal containing a collection of heterogeneous library resources for K-12 students. Search performance is examined in terms of search success, search time, strategy, and effort. This study revealed unsuccessful searches tended to take longer than successful searches;…

Following Argentina's economic collapse of December 2001, the authors examine the engagement of university faculty and students in various grassroots movements. Based on a qualitative study involving 24 formal structured interviews, 18 informal interviews, observation-based field work, and document analysis, the authors identify key forms of…

Children's social relationships have been linked with various indicators of their school engagement. This overview of the current literature examines evidence concerning the processes through which children's relationships with teachers, parents, and peers positively or negatively contribute to children's engagement in school. In this paper, we…