Peer mentoring has been used for many years by the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine to integrate new students into the academic and social culture of the institution. In 2001, an unusual situation arose. A problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum was introduced and the first cohort in this programme was mentored by senior traditional curriculum…

Colleges are increasingly interested in ways to better engage students in their academic careers. This article reports 20 college students' experiences as mentors for at-risk fourth-graders through a mentoring program called The Learning Connection (TLC), run by the Community Services Office at Moravian College. The study describes students'…

In this hermeneutical study, the authors focus on understanding the experiences of older Korean students who have come to the United States to pursue academic degrees at American universities. The purpose of this study is to describe the critical events related to their adjustment processes as well as to address some of the specific concerns of…

Students taking courses by distance learning were asked to complete the Academic Engagement Form and the Course Experience Questionnaire. Usable data were obtained from 238 students with a hearing loss and 166 students with no reported disability. Their scores on the two instruments were highly correlated and shared over 80% of their variance.…

During the last three years, Lincoln Middle School has been the site of a Professional Development School partnership in conjunction with the Illinois State University Middle School Department. With more than 90% of its 400-plus students receiving free or reduced price lunches, Lincoln is an eight-year-old, "Title I" building whose…

The Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Project is a collaborative effort of academic scholars, IR staff, and academic and administrative leaders at each of the UC (University of California) undergraduate campuses and at UCOP (University of California Office of the President). The objective is to develop new types of data and…

This study examined continuous automated speech recognition in the university lecture theatre. The participants were both native speakers of English (L1) and English as a second language students (L2) enrolled in an information systems course (Total N=160). After an initial training period, an L2 lecturer in information systems delivered three…

The IEA Preprimary Project is a longitudinal, cross-national study of preprimary care and education designed to identify how process and structural characteristics of the settings children attended at age 4 are related to their age-7 cognitive and language performance. Investigators collaborated to develop common instruments to measure family…

This study, part of the longitudinal national Study of Student Learning, investigated the precollege characteristics and college experiences of 825 first-generation college students compared to those of 1,860 traditional students at 23 diverse institutions nationwide. First-year gains in students' reading, math, and critical thinking abilities…

With the education reform movement came dissonance over testing as an indicator of classroom learning. This paper examines both formal and informal assessment and relates one institution's attempt to provide a bridge between authentic and traditional assessment. Authentic assessment is defined as a belief that student evaluation should measure…

This study looked at whether white students at predominantly black colleges are as likely as black students at white colleges to report lower grades, less satisfactory relations with faculty, perceptions of accommodation of diversity in the campus environment, and feelings of discrimination. Data consisted of student responses to questionnaires…

This paper describes the impact of early clinical contact (ECC) on medical students. The concepts emerged from a grounded theory analysis of interviews with students and faculty in the ECC program at Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, which places first-year and second-year students in a variety of clinical settings in ambulatory…

Written in 1953, this book presents the reminiscences of a renowned scientist about his early education in a one-room school at Prairie View, Kansas, during the 1870s and 1880s. The first chapter records early memories of the road to school, and describes the community of Anglo and German farmers served by Prairie View. Other chapters describe…

Contributors to this volume use their own stories to demonstrate success of one institution, the Catholic school system, in educating many African Americans who have gone on to make important contributions to the community. Their own experiences are the starting points for their reflections on the historical and sociological treatment of the…

This study at Portland State University (Oregon) combined information from a student database and survey responses to develop an information system for student information, including student experiences, retention, progress toward graduation, and post-graduation experiences. Following implementation of a new curriculum designed to improve student…