Rising college costs are of increasing concern. At the 12 public universities in Illinois, average increases in tuition were modest, generally in the 4% range, until 1999 when individual campuses begin to increase tuition at double digit rates. In 2002-2003, the overall average increase in tuition/fees more than doubled at 13.79%. In an effort to…

The review of existing literature suggests that few researchers have adopted cross-language comparisons to explore how cultural background affects the assessment of reading comprehension of students. In this present study, the researchers independently reviewed and rated all the items of two reading comprehension tests translated from Malay into…

Minority populations are underrepresented in fields of science, perhaps limiting scientific perspectives. Informed by recent studies using social cognitive career theory, this study examined whether three conceptual constructs: self-efficacy, perceived adult support, and perceived barriers, along with several discrete and immutable variables,…

Individuals with complex communication needs (CCN) who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to communicate in school and community activities often have paraeducators as communication partners. For individuals who use AAC, successful communication often depends upon their personal skills as well as the skills of their…

The transformative power of dialogue has the potential to serve as a healthful alternative to unproductive strategies for problem-solving in many communication contexts (Ryan & Natalle, 2001). Sadly, educational contexts emerge as contexts in dire need of such communicative reconstruction, evidenced by the alarming increase in incidences of…

Teacher learning can be modeled in a variety of different ways. In this study, an analysis of teacher social capital was used to describe the effects of a school-wide professional development program. Social capital refers to the resources that teachers can access through peer collaboration to support their ongoing learning. Findings indicate that…

In August 2009, the U.S. Department of Education announced opportunities for states and local educational agencies to vie for $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement Grants targeted at turning around or closing down chronically low-achieving schools. To qualify for a portion of these funds, school districts were required to implement one of…

Quality teacher education programs recognize the importance of field experiences in preparing teacher candidates. A field experience planned during the first days of school is invaluable to the success of a new teacher. The School of Education faculty at The University of Mississippi took on the challenge of implementing a first days of school…

This exploratory study focused on the mentoring experiences of women faculty members and graduate students within a counseling psychology graduate program. Results from semi-structured interviews and focus groups identified the women's contextual mentoring experiences in higher education and highlighted several factors that contribute to…

As a key component in self-regulated learning, the ability to accurately judge the status of learning enables students to become strategic and effective in the learning process. Weekly monitoring exercises were used to improve college students' (N = 94) accuracy of judgment of learning over a 14-week educational psychology course. A time series…

This paper identifies major errors and myths perpetuated by educational research textbooks. The most pervasive errors and myths advanced by methodology textbooks at the following eight phases of the educational research process are described: (a) formulating a research problem/objective; (b) reviewing the literature; (c) developing the research…

Using the Professional Development School (PDS) model of teacher preparation, a Midwestern university created the potential for teacher candidates to become immersed into the environment of an elementary school. The question this study explored was, "Does increased immersion at a PDS site impact preparation of teacher candidates?" Themes emerged…

The steps of implementing, analyzing, refining, and re-implementing a lesson is referred to as "lesson study." These steps formed the basis of a "workshop study" model that can be used to analyze a professional development workshop for the purposes of tailoring the content, resources, and collaborative efforts to better meet the needs of the…

This report focuses on the processes of change in beliefs and practices experienced by practicing elementary school teachers during a sixteen-session course using two of the modules from the "Developing Mathematical Ideas" (DMI) materials. We identify a collection of six metaphors for knowing, learning, and teaching mathematics to succinctly…

The purpose of this study was to determine how elementary pre-service teachers' perceptions of and attitudes toward the teaching portfolio process changed after participating in a university program-wide mentoring process. The research question for this study was: What is the impact of a university's program-wide mentoring process on elementary…