The body of research relating to assessment in education suggests that professional developers and seminar administrators have generally paid little attention to evaluation procedures. Scholars have also been critical of evaluations which use a single data source and have favoured the use of a multiple method design to generate a complete picture…

This paper explores the use of HLM analysis in determining the implementation effects of two science curriculum units on student learning. It also compares HLM results with prior results from ANCOVA analyses. HLM analyses were considered as an alternative to ANCOVA because student data were nested within classrooms. The data for this study are…

Written discourse completion tasks (WDCTs) have frequently been employed in pragmatics research as a key research instrument in eliciting the production of speech acts by second language learners while studies incorporating verbal report have provided evidence of the processes involved in second language speech act production. This study responds…

This paper presents some findings from an ethnographic study of international postgraduate students at a university in the South of England, which involved interviews and participant observation over a 12-month academic year. One of the major themes that emerged from this research was students' anxiety over their level of English language.…

The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent students with mild mental retardation exhibit strategic behaviour during problem solving and to investigate the relationships between the ongoing behaviours examined and the students' respective performance. Eleven students with non-organic mild mental retardation participated in the study.…

This paper explores methodological issues related to research into second language listening strategies. We argue that a number of central questions regarding research methodology in this line of enquiry are underexamined, and we engage in the discussion of three key methodological questions: (1) To what extent is a verbal report a valid and…

Creating surveys is a common task in evaluation research; however, designing a survey instrument to gather average group response data that can be interpreted in a meaningful way over time can be challenging. When surveying groups of people for the purpose of longitudinal analysis, the reliability of the result is often determined by the response…

The paradoxical findings about students' mathematics self-concept and academic achievement shown in international and comparative studies prompt this exploration of the function and development of mathematics self-concept. That is, when examining data within individual countries, a positive relationship exists between students' self-concept and…

Recent international studies have highlighted the success of students from Hong Kong in mathematics and problem-solving, and have begun to suggest some of the factors associated with this success. Other studies have suggested that Hong Kong students are averse to risk-taking, favouring memorisation and imitation in their solution strategies. Year…

This article aims to investigate reasons underpinning academic help-seeking behaviours of Chinese students in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Data were collected from 23,563 secondary students. The study found significant differences both in attitudes and reported behaviour among secondary school students from the three locations, however, the effect…

The research examines one teacher's perceptions of the value of offering a song which allowed her to teach not only the "content" of her unit of study, but which has also become the focus of her "process" and "pedagogy" in the unit. The study also examines the teacher's reactions to the deep level to which (she maintains) the Chinese learners…

This study examines the Chinese learner in the current changing education contexts with their emphasis on 21st century learning goals of inquiry, teamwork, and learning how to learn. With socioeconomic and technological changes, internationalisation and educational reforms, pedagogical approaches developed in the Western countries, such as…

International comparisons in educational achievement and economic performance have spurred studies on the East Asian learner. In this context the cultural perspective on the Chinese learner has gained currency. This paper examines how the interaction of cultural, social and structural forces shape the changing patterns of diversity among Chinese…

Attitudes to science scales developed earlier in England have been used in and around a Pakistan city with children in Primary/Elementary Grades 4-8. The limitations of a "transferred scale" in a culturally different context are apparent in a failure to reproduce the English factor patterns, but items are identified to serve as a base for future…

This article considers the underlying assumptions related to the use of random assignment in educational research and evaluation; more specifically, the ability of random assignment to create similar comparison groups for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of educational programmes. In theory, randomly assigning individuals to comparison…