Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) activities aim to promote collaborative knowledge construction and convergence. During the CSCL activity, the students should regulate their learning activity, at the individual and collective level. This implies an organisation cost related to the coordination of the activity with the team-mates…

Introduction: The current study describes the planning process and aims of the university reforms in Spain and suggests an innovative proposal, namely the design and evaluation of a week-long induction programme for first-year bachelor's degree students at the University of Lleida (Spain), organised within the European higher education framework.…

Studies the influences of modeling and social feedback on the acquisition of writing revision with 72 college students. Social feedback during enactive performance assisted learners from all modeling groups in acquiring writing and self-regulatory skills. (Contains 25 references and 3 tables.) (GCP)

In the present study, middle school students were directly taught strategies that facilitated the execution of writing processes, skills, and knowledge involved in planning, drafting, and revising text. Students in the experimental treatment condition produced essays that were longer, contained more mature vocabulary, and were qualitatively…

Investigates teachers' implementation and practice of reciprocal teaching (RT) in 2 elementary schools. The obstacles they encountered and modifications made to RT were examined in vivo. Teachers modified their practice of RT, and the authors examined their modifications. Theory and guidelines that can be used to help teachers with the…

Examines the relationship between paradigmatic and syntagmatic word knowledge. Familiar concrete nouns were administered in Spanish and English to bilingual students. Students were tested on the ability to provide superordinates, adequate definitions, and object descriptions. Producing superordinates in Spanish was a reliable predictor of the same…

To investigate the recommendation that children practice reading aloud at home, conversations of 3rd graders reading to their mothers were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded. Conversations between below-average readers and their mothers were marked by the frequent use of error corrections. College-educated mothers asked significantly more…

Examines the effects of coherence and relevance on shallow and deeper text processing, testing the hypothesis that enhancing the relevance of text segments compensates for breaks in local and global coherence. Results reveal that breaks in local coherence had no effect on any outcome measures, whereas relevance enhanced deeper processing.…

Assesses developmental changes in verbal memory from the beginning of elementary school to late adolescence on the basis of data from the Munich Longitudinal Study. Suggests that overall, individual differences in verbal memory performance develop very early in life and are relatively unaffected by differences in educational experiences. (Contains…

Examines the accuracy of parents' assessment of their children's mathematics performance and how this relates to the time parents spend on children's homework. Results reveal that the time parents spent helping their children with mathematics homework was unrelated to children's mathematics performance, parents' predictions of their children's…

Examines the extent to which low- and high-WMC (working memory capacity) readers adjust cognitive processes to fit the reading purpose. When reading to study, low-WMC readers emphasized less demanding processes over more demanding processes to a greater extent than high-WMC readers and recalled less. When reading for entertainment, patterns of…

Examines school-level differences in the relations between school belonging and various outcomes. Results indicated that belonging was lower in urban schools than in suburban schools. Whereas individual students' perceptions of belonging were inversely related to depression, social rejection, and school problems, aggregated belonging was related…

Study explores high school completion among African Americans. Students completed a theory of planned behavior questionnaire early in their 2nd year. Intentions to complete the year were accurately predicted from attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Intentions and, to a lesser extent, perceived behavioral control,…

Hope theory integrates the conceptualization of goals, along with the strategies to achieve those goals, and the motivation to pursue those goals. In a 6-year longitudinal study, individual differences in hope, as measured by the Hope Scale scores of entering college freshmen, predicted better overall grade point averages. Hopeful thinking in…

Investigated the mechanisms through which native-language (English) word decoding ability predicted individual differences in native- and second-language (Spanish) learning. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that second-language learning is founded on native-language phonological-orthographic ability among college-age adults, especially…