Undergraduate student misuse of mobile technology (e.g., smartphones, laptops, tablets) for non-class purposes (e.g., texting, scrolling social media, playing games) has become ubiquitous in college classrooms across the globe. In addition, research has suggested that these digital distractions can negatively impact learning and performance. The…

Generative learning strategies are intended to improve students' learning by prompting them to actively make sense of the material to be learned. But are they effective for all students? This review provides an overview of six popular generative learning strategies: concept mapping, explaining, predicting, questioning, testing, and drawing. Its…

Today's traditional-aged college students are avid users of mobile technology. Commonly referred to as the Net Generation, today's college students spend several hours each day using their smart phones, iPads, and laptops. Although some scholars initially opined that the Net Generation would grow into technologically savvy digital natives who…

This commentary begins by summarizing the five contributions to this special issue and briefly recapping the background to the topic of student learning in higher education. Narrative and systematic reviews are compared, and the relative value of different bibliographic databases in the context of systematic reviews is assessed. The importance of…

When we rely upon gains on some measure to support statements of prescription, we have the obligation to ensure that those measures are valid. Nearly 10 years after an influential National Research Council ("2001") report on educational assessment identified an explicit model of cognition as one of three necessary components of a valid assessment…

The academic workplace, with its requirements for achieving tenure within the first 6 years of employment, is designed in ways that discriminate against young faculty with family care responsibilities, most notably mothers. Mason and Goulden ("Academe," http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/2002/02nd/02ndmas.htm, 2002, "Academe,"…

We identify the major tasks facing pre-tenure faculty members and outline advice, based on a review of the literature and our experiences, for succeeding in academia. The challenges encountered by new faculty include learning the culture of the new academic institution, understanding the processes and policies for academic performance review,…

Research on Problem-Based Learning in medical education has undergone an evolutionary process from initial proof of concept studies through critiques of the original methods and beyond. Initial studies focused on whether or not the instructional method was effective for medical students and the goals of medical education. Despite much movement…

The development of two dominant research traditions is described: students' approaches to learning (SAL) and information processing (IP). The development of the third tradition, self-regulated learning (SRL) is added. SAL is based on European research, whereas IP and SRL are more typical background ideas for North-American research. The most…

A conceptual framework for assessing student motivation and self-regulated learning in the college classroom is presented. The framework is based on a self-regulatory (SRL) perspective on student motivation and learning in contrast to a student approaches to learning (SAL) perspective. The differences between SRL and SAL approaches are discussed,…

This paper describes how research into approaches to university teaching, from a relational perspective, has been used to develop an inventory to measure the key aspects of the variation in approaches to teaching. The Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) is one of several that derive from the research perspective applied by Marton and colleagues…