The study examined the extent to which type-of-practice strategies (massed or distributed) had an effect on learning a verbal information (reading) or intellectual skill (math) task for second- and fourth-grade students. One hundred and ninety students from eight second- and fourth-grade classrooms participated in the study. Classrooms were randomly assigned to the two practice conditions and all students participated in a 9- week integrated learning system (ILS) intervention. The present study found that intellectual skill tasks are learned slightly more effectively in a massed than distributed practice mode, though the difference was not statistically significant. Students also learned verbal information tasks more effectively in the massed practice mode, though the difference was not statistically significant. The differences between the two practice conditions were not as great on verbal information tasks, however, and no statistically significant differences were found. Additional analyses, using the number of lesson units completed, showed that having completed a greater number of math lessons had a positive effect on the math test scores. These analyses suggest that a stronger treatment or better adherence to the treatment could have caused a statistically significant effect for massed practice in intellectual skill domains. Replication is needed to provide a more solid foundation for this assertion. It was concluded from this study, due to the moderate effect size differences and the identical cost factor for incorporating the two types of practice, that the use of massed practice would be more prudent for intellectual skill tasks. Massed practice is also more effective in the higher order verbal information area. Strong research inference suggests the continuance of distributed practice for "lower level" tasks, particularly in the verbal information areas. Further research is needed to discover factors that limit or negate the spacing effect.

The problem of this study was to determine the relationship between selected factors and the grade-level preference of elementary student teachers. The factors studied were self-concept, academic achievement, commitment to teaching, and personality traits.

This reserach attemptedbto investigate the epistemological beliefs held by Turkish students through gender, grade level, and fields of the study by using Hofer and Pintrich&#039 / s (1997) Frame work. A total of 1557 sixth, eighth, and tenth grade students from &Ccedil / ankaya district of Ankara participated in the study. Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire and Demographical Questionnaire were administered to the students in order to determine their epistemological belSiefs and their background caharcteristics. Four main conclusions can be drawn from the current study / epistemological beliefs are multidimensional, epistemological beliefs vary as a function of gender, grade level, and fields of study. Specifically girls were found to have more sophisticated beliefs in justification of knowledge than boys. Results also supproted the idea that epistemological beliefs develops over time.tenth grade students had more sophisticated beliefs in source of knowledge, certainty of knowledge, and development of knowledge compared to sixth and eighth grade students. Besides, findings of the study revealed differences in epistemological beliefs of students across different major fields of the study. The students attending to the mathematics-science fields were fiund to have more sophisticated beliefs about justification of knowledge than the students attending to literature-social science fields.

ABSTRACT INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS&rsquo / PROBABILISTIC MISCONCEPTIONS MUT, Ali ihsan M.S. in Secondary Science and Mathematics Education Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Safure BULUT December 2003, 86 pages The purpose of the study was to investigate the students&rsquo / probabilistic misconceptions with respect to grade level, previous instruction on probability and gender. The sample of the study was 885 students from different types of the schools (general high schools, private collages, Anatolian high school, vocational high schools, and elementary schools) and from grade levels (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). The sample represented a range of students with respect to socio-economic level and cultural background. To collect data for the study Probabilistic Misconception Test (PMT) and a questionnaire were administered. The test consisted of 14 problems from 8 probabilistic misconception types. Its content validity was tested. The data of the study were analyzed by means of SPSS. Each misconception type is investigated with respect to all variables. The results of the study revealed that: (a) The frequencies of all misconception types varied across grade levels. (b) The percentages of students who received instruction on probability in the school were higher than those who did not received instruction in terms of misconceptions on Effect of Sample Size and Time Axis Fallacy. In addition, the other misconception types were more frequent among the students who did not receive a certain instruction on probability than the students who received a certain instruction probability before the study / (c) The frequencies of all misconception types varied across gender.

The primary grade teachers of the Cache, Logan, and Box Elder School Districts were used in this study. A questionnaire was developed that would be an effective measurement of the information needed to evaluate or substantiate the hypothesis which was: It is believed that less than 50 percent of the primary grade children have poetry read to them daily as part of the curriculum. Furthermore, it is believed that much of the poetry read does not meet the standards of "good poetry for children" as measured by experts in this field of learning. The study revealed that only 11 percent of the children were read to daily. However, the majority of teachers were reading from approved literature for children.

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This researcher examined an alternative classroom structure for ninth-grade students substantially below grade level (SBGL) in mathematics. This researcher considered whether targeting the academic and social needs of students SBGL in mathematics in a ninth-grade class would increase their self-efficacy and engagement with the mathematics by studying four teaching effects: teacher, teacher-curriculum, peer-curriculum, and peer. The researcher used interviews, observations, and surveys to collect qualitative and quantitative data. The case study (n = 19) employed a QUAL + quan convergent parallel mixed methods case study. Meta-inferences from the analyses of qualitative and quantitative data indicate that the structure of the observed class increased in positive behaviors associated with self-efficacy, cognitive engagement, and behavioral engagement. While the data show an increase in emotional and social engagement, the quantitative data did not show a statistical significance in their increase. These changes illustrated that these ninth-grade students recognized and willingly worked to close the gaps that they acknowledge they had in their mathematics understanding. Findings indicated that the convergent results of self-efficacy, cognitive engagement and behavioral engagement related to all four teaching effects. While qualitative data showed a strong positive change associated with the divergent results of social and emotional engagement, students self-reported little social and emotional peer influence in student interviews and student surveys.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the students&rsquo / multiple intelligences according to their preferences and how students&rsquo / multiple intelligences differ in terms of grade level (first, third fifth and eighth) and gender. This research was conducted at Middle East Technical University Development Foundation School in the spring of the 2001-2002 academic-year with three classes from each level namely first grade, third grade, fifth grade and eight grade. In this study, Pictorial Teele Inventory for Multiple Intelligences was applied on 321 students and the results were analyzed. In order to examine the effect of the gender and grade level on students&rsquo / Multiple Intelligences mean, standard deviation and MANOVA were used. Results showed that students multiple intelligences showed variety according to their grade levels. For example, the students at the first grade level demonstrated strong preference for linguistic intelligence and logical-mathematical intelligence in the first grade and the two intelligences were followed by spatial intelligence, and bodily kinesthetic intelligence. While the third grade students&rsquo / most dominant intelligences preferences were interpersonal, spatial, logical-mathematical, and linguistic intelligence the fifth and eight grade students&rsquo / preferences were interpersonal intelligence bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, and spatial intelligence. When results are eximined in terms of gender, it can be said that the male students&rsquo / logical-mathematical and bodily kinesthetic intelligence mean scores were higher than female students&rsquo / whereas the female students&rsquo / musical intelligence mean score was higher than male students&rsquo / .

The aim of this study is to investigate the elementary school students&amp / #8217 / understandings of the nature of science (NOS). A total of 1949 students (1026 sixth graders and 923 eighth graders) from six different elementary schools participated in the study. Nature of Science Questionnaire for Elementary Level (E-NOS) questionnaire, adapted from Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) developed by Aikenhead, Fleming and Ryan (1989) and Views on Nature of Science (VNOS-D) constructed by Lederman, Adb-El-Khalick, Bell and Schwartz (2002), was used to assess the students&amp / #8217 / views on the NOS. E-NOS consisted of eleven items that examined the students&amp / #8217 / views on seven constructs concerning the NOS, namely tentativeness, subjectivity and creativity of scientific knowledge, social and cultural embeddedness of science, the role of observations and inferences, theories and laws and uncertainty in developing science. Additionally, the definitions of science, the difference of science from the other disciplines and scientific approach in scientific investigations were examined. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted by twelve volunteer students (7 sixth and 5 eighth graders) to investigate the students&amp / #8217 / views on nature of science in depth. Data were analyzed both frequency and Chi-squire analyses. Results of this study revealed that the majority of Turkish elementary school students held traditional views on some aspects of the nature of science. According to these results, it was especially notable that the largest group of the students was not aware of the fact that scientific theories and laws are different kinds of scientific knowledge. In addition, many of the students had the idea that there is certain and defined scientific method in order to develop scientific knowledge. It was also found that more 8th grade students held contemporary (realistic) views of the tentative and subjective nature of science and the role of precision and uncertainty in science and more 6th graders had contemporary views on the role of observations and inferences in science. Furthermore, it was indicated that more female students than males possessed contemporary views on the subjectivity and creativity of the nature of science. Chi-square statistics also displayed that there are statistically significant differences in distributions of the students&amp / #8217 / responses on all aspects of the nature of science with respect to grade level. In addition, it was found that there are statistically significant differences in distributions of the students&amp / #8217 / responses on the subjective nature of scientific knowledge, social and cultural embeddedness of the scientific knowledge, creativity and the role of prediction and uncertainty in science and scientific approach to investigations in science with respect to gender.

No description available.