The author discusses the results of an annual "Voluntary Support of Education" survey by the Council for Aid to Education. According to the report, after two lackluster years, donations to U.S. colleges and universities rose last year by a healthy 8.2 percent, to an estimated $30.3-billion. The total raised comes close to the amount seen in 2008,…

Young English-speaking children often omit auxiliary verbs from their speech, producing utterances such as "baby crying" alongside the more adult-like "baby is crying." Studies have found that children's proficiency with auxiliary BE is correlated with frequency statistics in the input, leading some researchers to argue…

The laboratory notebooks of physics undergraduates taking two second-year practical courses were audited to discover whether they had used feedback comments in their subsequent coursework. Ninety-five per cent of the 37 students on the first course and 100% of the 14 students on the second course whose work was audited had used feedback. The…

This study compares an interactive learning manager for graphic engineering to develop spatial vision (ILMAGE_SV) to traditional methods. ILMAGE_SV is an asynchronous web-based learning tool that allows the manipulation of objects with a 3D viewer, self-evaluation, and continuous assessment. In addition, student learning may be monitored, which…

The study aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of a 2-year health-related physical education intervention in a pretest-posttest design. Sixteen elementary schools (764 pupils, mean age: 11.2 plus or minus 0.7) participated in the study. Schools were randomly assigned to the intervention condition (n = 8) and the control condition (n = 8). Making…

Suggests that students need to learn to "read" the cultural texts surrounding them. Argues that there is great need for including analyses of popular culture in the college curriculum. Presents a unit to help students gain a greater appreciation for the influence that advertising has upon them and the subtlety with which it manipulates people,…

Globalization, the explosive growth of knowledge, the advent of information technology, and the development of a knowledge-based economy are leading to unprecedented worldwide changes. Hong Kong's continued cultural, social, and economic development will depend on whether its population can rise to these challenges and make the best use of the…

In a replication and extension of earlier research, we examined the explanatory adequacy of the social cognitive choice model (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) in a sample of 1404 students majoring in a variety of computing disciplines at 23 historically Black and 27 predominantly White universities. Participants completed measures of self-efficacy,…

This report summarizes the latest available national statistics on access and attainment by low income and minority community college students. The data come from the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) annual surveys of all postsecondary educational institutions and the NCES…

The first two years of the authors' research study into models of professional development (PD) of a longer duration than workshops or conferences and the impact of those types of PD activities on teaching practice were reported in Boyle et al. (2004, 2005). The research team has now completed the third year of the research and this report updates…

At a time when higher education institutions (HEIs) around the globe face declining student numbers and decreasing funding grants, it becomes imperative for those involved in the recruitment process to understand the factors utilized by students in the search process. This paper explores the influence of two such factors: Information Supplied by…

Background: The field of higher education abounds with qualitative research aimed at highlighting the needs, struggles, strengths, and motivations of academically struggling students. However, because of the small-scale nature of these studies, they rarely enter the public debate or impact institutional policy concerning access, remediation,…

Considers how helping one to imagine himself or herself a writer is much more complex than nurturing a more stable grasp of sentence clarity or spelling. Notes that it involves the ability to nurture the personal introspection and cultural scrutiny that makes writing a source for reflection and transformation. (SG)

This paper reviews systematic research findings on the effectiveness of various interventions designed to help at-risk students remain in college. It shows how changes in federal policy and public attitudes since the mid-1960s have opened up higher education to women, minorities, and nontraditional students and also shifted the "center of gravity"…

Gervais High School--with a senior class of 80 and a total enrollment of 337--may be small in size compared to its neighbors, but it has demonstrated over the last four years the ability to think big in pursuit of excellence. A decade ago, Gervais had a well-earned reputation in Oregon's Willamette Valley as a drug-ridden, gang-infested…