A study of 82 Canadian college freshmen investigated working memory, verbal ability, and prior knowledge as predictors of quality of students' lecture notes, lecture summaries, and content recall. Students with higher working memory benefitted more from listening to the lecture than from listening and taking notes. Quality of summaries predicted…

Hypothesizes that developing an understanding of the connections between oral and written language rather than phonemic awareness per se, is essential to learning to read. At the macrolevel this involves an understanding that written words represent words in oral language, and at the microlevel that letters in written words stand for phonemes in…

Data from 127 urban and 39 rural elementary schools were used to examine the utility of Canadian census data for understanding differences in school-level academic achievement, and whether the method of constructing demographic variables affected their relationship to achievement. Indicators obtained with the enrollment method correlated more…

The recent establishment of charter schools in Alberta (Canada) has prompted allegations of a radical change towards privatization by the Progressive Conservative (PC) government. However, policy decisions since the 1970s demonstrate that the PC government has consistently supported private alternatives to public education; charter schools extend…

A study used interviews, observations, and documents to examine perceptions of principals in eight accredited, independent schools in Alberta (Canada) about major factors affecting their leadership role. Factors included philosophical congruence enhanced by respect and trust, as well as personal relationships, school culture, symbolism, and…

Interviews and surveys of 13 teachers and staff and 213 students from four successful Canadian "outreach schools" found that the characteristics of alternative education that contribute to its success are volunteerism, small size, egalitarianism, a caring attitude, participatory decision making, organizational flexibility, individualized learning,…

Research involving junior high school students in a white upper-middle class suburban community in western Canada examined how television and magazines influenced teenagers' gender identity, how girls and boys dealt with these influences, and how advertising reinforced patriarchal structures presented by media. Single-sex classes may provide a…

Chapters of this special issue focus on two studies of the relationship between students' attentive behavior and literacy achievement involving more than 8,000 Australian elementary school students. Findings from an intervention study and a longitudinal cohort study highlight the interdependence among student-level characteristics and influences…

Discusses how students acquire curriculum knowledge and beliefs in typical upper-elementary and middle-school social studies and science units, and how the cognitive processes involved in acquiring knowledge are themselves acquired through classroom experiences. Uses evidence from a series of classroom studies to demonstrate how classroom learning…

Investigated approaches of 549 students to learning in Finnish general upper secondary school through the Learning Process Questionnaire (J. Biggs, 1987). Finds significant differences between students' approaches to learning in the different form levels. Approaches to learning were also related to gender and mathematics and English grades. (SLD)

Used a phenomenographic approach to reveal the qualitatively different ways in which 40 students in Hong Kong (China) primary and secondary schools experience and understand the phenomenon of graphic representations of quantitative data. Describes an outcome space depicting four variations of children's understanding. (Author/SLD)

Accounts for the paradox posed by F. Lord (1967) concerning the logic behind statistical adjustment with preexisting groups in both causal and descriptive terms. The account of the paradox illustrates the need for causal metamodels. (Author/SLD)

A three-stage research project in Iceland traced the development of interpersonal competence of 8- to 11-year-old students in solving communication conflicts, developed an intervention and prevention program, and studied the professional development of 14 teachers in relation to students' sociomoral and interpersonal competence development. (SLD)

Expands the description of the teaching-learning process to a teaching-studying-learning process that emphasizes the active role of the student. Suggests that interaction is the central concept in this process and considers direct and indirect interaction. (SLD)

Developed a scale for measuring an individual's tendency to see himself or herself as an inner-directed agent or as a pawn, an outer-directed creature and tested the scale with 49 Norwegian college students. Reliability and validity results are promising. (SLD)