Background: Traditional studies of children's mastery of conservation of volume in liquids and solids have reported that conservation of volume in liquids is an easier concept to master than its solid counterpart. However, the two concepts have been assessed in different ways, with the assessment tool for solids employing a more complex process.…

Background: Education fundamentally shapes an individual's life chances and social status. Duration and level of education are associated with people's incomes, socio-economic status, living standard, lifestyle and the respect and esteem they enjoy. Failure to fulfil educational potential may have long-term consequences for later occupational and…

Background: This paper explores the appropriateness of using mystery customer programmes in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Purpose: The main aim of the paper is to examine potential advantages and disadvantages of mystery customer programmes within HEIs, and to identify any issues that would need to be successfully resolved were…

Background: Secondary vocational schools are engaged in a process of innovation and improving their instructional formats to help students acquire the necessary skills in occupational settings. Teachers in vocational education are increasingly being required to offer instructional environments that stimulate students to organize their own learning…

Background: Educational differentiation, or the allocation of students to different types of school or different locations within schools, is a common feature of modern education systems. In most countries, student outcomes vary considerably, both by school and academic location within schools. Purpose: The purpose is to ascertain the extent that…

Background: This investigation focuses on student attitudes and looks at school quality from the perspective of affective variables rather than students' knowledge or abilities. The concept of attitude includes ways of feeling, thinking and behaving and maintaining an expression of one's identity within the environment. The analysis focuses on…

Background: The assumption that parents have some effect on their children's attitudes to learning is one that few educationalists would challenge. The ways in which this influence is brought to bear are a slightly more complex and contentious matter, however. Purpose: The paper uses data from a tri-national PhD study on pupil attitudes to examine…

Background: When an exam question is read, a mental representation of the task is formed in each student's mind. This processing can be affected by features such as visual resources (e.g. pictures, diagrams, photographs, tables), which can come to dominate the mental representation due to their salience. Purpose: The aim of this research was to…

Background: This was a small-scale study conducted in Hong Kong Chinese language classes, based on the research in cognitive strategy instruction. Purpose: This study aimed to explore whether Chinese language teachers were able to develop their own school-based strategy instruction programme through collaborating with the researcher. Programme…

Background: The implementation of the nine-year integrated curriculum in the primary and secondary schools of Taiwan represented, in practice, a great change to the nature of school teaching. This was mainly due to the fact that the new scheme for the curriculum required teachers to collaborate with one another, when they had been teaching…

Background: Environmental issues are frequently controversial and involve conflicting interests and values. Much environmental education literature explicitly encourages teachers to promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours amongst their students, despite evidence that teacher support for such a policy is ambiguous at best. The literature…

Background: ICT (information and communication technology) and project work are challenging issues for many teachers to deal with in the classroom. For years there were predictions that teachers, textbooks and even schools would be replaced by new teaching and learning technology. This prediction does not appear to have come about. Cuban has…

Background: All schools in England are subject to regular national inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), using published and transparent criteria. The resultant reports are in the public domain. Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to analyse and evaluate the comments on attendance issues within inspection reports. Sample:…

Background: There is considerable interest in differences in students' approaches to learning, particularly in the difference between "deep" approaches (characterized by contextualization, critical review and recognition of the value of the content) and "surface" approaches (characterized by rote learning for functional purposes). The "Revised…

Background: Underachievement among boys and particular ethnic groups is a major challenge to the education system. Purpose: This paper reports on one local education authority's attempts to address this concern by investigating the characteristics of its schools demonstrating success with the groups causing most concern: black Caribbean, black…