Language is an important element in the struggle for social change and decolonization within South African tertiary education. We explored the relationship between indigenous languages and cocurricular involvement to sense of belonging. Data were collected via a survey of 4210 students that included demographics, cocurricular involvement, and…

Science learning requires visuospatial thinking. Accordingly, spatial ability is regarded as the key to learning science well, but its effects are sometimes not as significant as expected. To this end, this research aims to conceptualize spatial abilities and to clarify their relation to science learning based on an analysis of empirical studies.…

The rise of online learning over the past few decades has raised fundamental questions about the kinds of "spaces" and "places" this mode of education creates. Do they support meaningful exchanges? Can they advance educational equity, access, and community-building? Are they comparable to in-person classroom experiences? The…

Recent advances in molecular genetics and epigenetics are reviewed that have major implications for the bio-behavioral sciences and for understanding how organisms adapt to their environments at both phylogenetic and ontogenic levels. From a post-genomics perspective, the environment is as crucial as the DNA sequence for constructing the…

The interaction behaviours of successful, high-achieving learners when using a Learning Management System (LMS) are different than the behaviours of learners who are having more difficulty mastering the course material. This paper explores the idea that conventional Learning Management Systems can exploit data mining techniques to predict the…

Basic calculus skills that are prerequisites for advanced mathematical studies continue to be a problem for a significant proportion of higher education students. While there are many types of revision material that could be offered to students, in this paper we investigate whether short, narrated video recordings of mathematical explanations…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the Florida Master Teacher Initiative (FMTI)--an i3-funded early learning program aimed at improving the quality of teaching and student outcomes in grades PreK through third grade in high need schools. The FMTI schools participated in four program components: (1) a job-embedded graduate…

Contextualizing science instruction involves utilizing students' prior knowledge and everyday experiences as a catalyst for understanding challenging science concepts. This study of two middle school science classrooms examined how students utilized the contextualizing aspects of project-based instruction and its relationship to their science…

This article deals with the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). TIMSS has provided a comprehensive assessment of educational contexts and mathematics and science achievement (National Research Council, 1999). The initial TIMSS assessment was conducted in 1995 (TIMSS 1995) and several studies have examined factors related to…

Success in Sight focuses on the interrelated parts of an education system. This systemic school improvement intervention is designed to address schools' specific needs while building their capacities to plan, implement, and evaluate school improvement practices. It is intended to help schools, leadership teams, and teachers systemically engage in…

In multilevel modeling, group-level variables (L2) for assessing contextual effects are frequently generated by aggregating variables from a lower level (L1). A major problem of contextual analyses in the social sciences is that there is no error-free measurement of constructs. In the present article, 2 types of error occurring in multilevel data…

Purpose: The purpose of this end piece, framed in aesthetic and critical theory, is to review the author's own approach with graduate students regarding the omnipresence and significance of emotion in organizational leadership, and to comment on the contributions to emotional theory found in this volume of the "Journal of Educational…

Over the past three decades, researchers and educators have increasingly recognized the importance of K-12 school climate. This summary report builds on previous school climate reviews and details how school climate is associated with and/or promotes safety, healthy relationships, engaged learning and teaching and school improvement efforts. In…

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of mind mapping with cooperative learning (MMCL) and cooperative learning (CL) on: (a) programming performance; (b) problem solving skill; and (c) metacognitive knowledge among computer science students in Malaysia. The moderating variable is the students' logical thinking level with two…

This paper focuses on a learning strategy designed to overcome students' difficulty in understanding evolutionary change within the framework of geological time. Incorporated into the learning program "From Dinosaurs to Darwin: Evolution from the Perspective of Time," this strategy consists of four scaffolded investigations in which…