This paper describes an analytical study which characterises the virtual communities of the Orkut social network, focusing in particular on education, training and technology, in order to understand whether this and other social websites allow the development of informal learning. This empirical study, which is descriptive and exploratory, began…

This paper begins with a focus on the problematic nature of one key term in the Bradley Report. "Socioeconomic status," or SES as commonly used, lacks clear definition leading to ongoing debates about its measurement. A working consensus on SES and its measurement is necessary for the report's recommendations to proceed effectively. Next we…

This illustrative paper provides an introduction to using mixed qualitative methods of photo-elicitation, face to face interviews and semiotic analysis to uncover pre-service students' beliefs about young children. The researchers share their experience on conducting a study using photo-elicitation and engaging pre-service teachers in a discussion…

This paper presents results from a longitudinal study of sojourner students which was conducted at an international university in Germany from 2004 to 2007. The study followed a cohort of undergraduate students from the first week of their studies to their graduation. Participants completed three questionnaires: the Portrait Value Questionnaire…

Reconceptualists and poststructuralists increasingly criticize child-centered pedagogy as being overly reliant on outmoded notions of (developmentally appropriate) practices. Reconceptualists believe that developmental theories should be critically examined cross culturally, whereas poststructuralists work from a social perspective to reconstruct…

The aim of this study is to explore whether there is a difference between the student teachers' opinions about in-class teaching skills before and after applying micro-teaching. This study was carried out with the participation of second-year students of the Child Development Program of a Vocational School in the fall term of 2005-2006 academic…

The role of formal education in the socio-economic development of a country cannot be over-emphasized. It is in this light, that over the years, governments of Ghana and other organizations have supported the education sector in many ways. Despite the efforts, many people think that a lot more can be done, but resources are not unlimited. Against…

The purpose of the research is to ascertain the effectiveness of in-service training for school counselors on the inclusion of students with disabilities. In this research, pre-experimental method in compliance with pretest- posttest model is employed in order to ascertain the effectiveness of in-service training for school counselors on the…

There exist quite many studies on the anxiety especially when it comes to the effect of foreign language learning anxiety on the learners. These studies show that there is a huge amount of foreign language learning anxiety impact on the learners. The present study focuses on the influence of foreign language anxiety on the Indian learners that…

Global warming is one of the important environmental problems whose dangerous effects are increasing gradually. The study reported herein aimed to reveal student teachers' conceptions about global warming and the effect of biology teacher education program on their awareness of this environmental issue. An open-ended questionnaire was used to…

Pragmatic aspect of formulaic language must be emphasized and employed in second language acquisition. Translation of formulaic speech can help learners better understand the pragmatic nature of L2 prefabricated language through comparing them with their L1 (first language) equivalents. This study proposes a contrastive lexical pragmatic approach…

Tenure track system (TTS) was introduced in higher education institutions of Pakistan in 2002 as part of administrative reforms. The main objectives of the reform were to improve performance of higher education in the country through attracting qualified people and improving performance of academic faculty of higher education institutions…

Policy makers have advanced out-of-school time learning as a means to address far-reaching class and racial/ethnic disparities in high school achievement and college readiness, particularly in urban districts. However, limited data have hindered large-scale efforts to evaluate the influence of such activities on student achievement. Recent federal…

Science lessons taught via experiments motivate the students, and make them more insistent on learning science. This study aims to examine the effects of cooperative learning on students' academic achievements and their skills in identifying laboratory equipments. The sample for the study consisted of a total of 43 sophomore students in primary…

The identification of valid terms in any domain is fundamental to its computerization. For this reason, in this paper we present a method for obtaining automated morphosyntactic patterns, which will help researchers to obtain valid terms from the proposed patterns, in order to build quality ontologies for the translation from one language to…