Nothing interests middle schoolers more than themselves, so a project that has them investigating their own names proves to be motivation for research, interviews, and writing. In the process, students find a reason to care about organization, writing conventions, writing style, and personal reflection. (Contains 9 resources.)

Over the past dozen years, the switch from paper to electronic sources of information has been all encompassing. How can technology support the efforts of scholars to find and evaluate information? General-purpose search engines use an obscure mix of advanced algorithms to index, search, match, and rank results. Metasearch software extends the…

Military service academies face unique challenges integrating research into the undergraduate curriculum. Like other institutions they have worked hard to implement strategies designed to overcome a range of barriers to student participation in research by creating opportunities in the classroom. To promote research exposure for biology students…

This article contributes to the research training environment literature by presenting a method to guide the development of a dissertation research question. The method relies on 2 essential components: (a) informal doctoral student research team meetings to provide a mentoring environment in which conversation and discussion about dissertation…

To promote student engagement, professors must actively seek to create the conditions that foster engagement. Chickering and Gamson (1987) suggest that good practices in undergraduate education are ones that: encourage student-faculty contact, develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, encourage active learning, provide students with…

The Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) facilitates the use of modern genomics methods in undergraduate education. Initially focused on microarray technology, but with an eye toward diversification, GCAT is a community working to improve the education of tomorrow's life science professionals. GCAT participants have access to affordable…

This article describes an effort by principals and university researchers to create student co-research groups at several high schools. The authors describe the student co-research team concept, how it provides principals with ways to actively engage students in ongoing school-reform efforts, and how it assists them in gathering and analyzing data…

We developed and evaluated the G3S-SP, a scale measuring health sciences graduate students' perceptions of the quality of their supervision. The scale was developed from a literature review and existing questionnaires. Feedback from health sciences graduate students and supervisors led to a revised version of the scale that was mailed to 215…

Nine graduate students (teacher-researchers) with an average of 6 years teaching experience (1-15 years) participated in action research to examine the influence of teacher-chosen visual aids (pictures) on children's writing. A total of 165 elementary students participated in the two phases of the research project: 83 boys and 82 girls in…

Some students at the master-level viewed research methodology courses negatively. This study investigated six factors that changed attitudes of graduate school students toward research during the course of a semester at a mid-sized university (University X) located in a western state. To facilitate this study, a survey instrument (Student Research…

The mission of the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools (CYFS) is to advance the conduct of high-quality interdisciplinary research to promote the intellectual, behavioral, and social-emotional development and functioning of individuals across educational, familial, and community contexts. Central to this is…

This report looks at the characteristics, educational experiences and the short- and long-term goals of senior-level physics and astronomy majors at a point just before their graduation. It examines the factors that influenced them to study physics or astronomy as well as what they considered important when choosing which institution to attend.…

A collaborating scientist--a rewarding addition to any high school science program--can help students collect and analyze data that either replicates or parallels the work of the partnering scientist. This type of partnership is beneficial for both students and scientists, and perhaps there has never been a better time to consider such a…

Stomata are the pores on leaves through which carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor are exchanged with the atmosphere. Researchers have found that leaf stomatal densities change in response to several environmental variables, including humidity, light intensity, and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas (Van Der Burgh, Dilcher,…

It is important for educators to address the diverse learning styles that exist within the students found in their courses and to try new ideas. Different people have different ways of telling other people what they know. The authors of this article contend that it is vital to incorporate lesson plans/activities that address students who have…