the newly administered iranian ph.d. program entrance exam (ppee) is supposed to have had different washback effects on university curriculums. this qualitative study examined the effects of the new tefl ppee on the applicants’ study plans and strategies from the points of view of both iranian university instructors and applicants. to this end, we conducted in-depth interviews with 10 experienc...

Instructors can use both “multiple-choice” (MC) and “constructed response” (CR) questions (such as short answer, essay, or problem-solving questions) to evaluate student understanding of course materials and principles. This article begins by discussing the advantages and concerns of using these alternate test formats and reviews the studies conducted to test the hypothesis (or perhaps better d...

class about Newton’s law of gravitation. You’ve carefully explained that the gravitational force depends on the product of the two masses involved and on the inverse square of the distance between them. You’ve shown a few examples or perhaps videos and animations to help your students connect the abstraction of an equation to the real physical world. You may assign thoughtful homework problems,...

Students' religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predicting whether they will accept evolution, yet college biology instructors teaching evolution at public institutions often have religious beliefs and cultures that are different from their religious students. This difference in religious beliefs and cultures may be a barrier to effective evolution educ...

background and aims. recent progresses in preventive dentistry and their correct application in many developed countries have remarkably decreased the rate of oro-dental diseases in children and teenagers, while the rate of oro-dental diseases is on the rise among the children in developing countries. the aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of educating school health care instructors b...

Feedback is considered to be the bridge between what has been learned and what the student should know. Feedback can correct misconceptions, motivate learners, stimulate deep thinking, and guide future behavior. However, in the online environment instructors must rely upon technologies to deliver feedback to students. To better understand the prompts and processes for online delivery of feedbac...

Despite the wide diversity of formats with which to construct class examinations, there are many reasons why both university students and instructors prefer multiple-choice tests over other types of exam questions. The purpose of the present study was to examine this multiple-choice/constructed-response debate within the context of teaching computer programming classes. This paper reports the a...

Women’s participation in physics remains low, with only 20% of bachelor’s degrees and 19% of PhDs in physics being awarded to women. The physics classroom may serve as a barrier to women’s participation when the contexts of questions and examples are stereotypically male. To study the possible effects of male contexts on student responses, two versions of a physics conceptual exam were given to...