While it is assumed that American undergraduates who study abroad derive unique benefits from the experience, until now its actual impact has not been assessed. This book, which presents the findings of a long-term evaluation project, provides the kind of systematic and comprehensive data needed to document and give future guidance to programs of study abroad. Using comparative measures, the authors examine the effects of overseas study in terms of education, career, personal satisfaction, and cultural values. Undergraduates in four U.S. college and university programs involving nearly thirty European institutions were chosen for the study. The focus of the research is the role of study abroad in students' acquisition of foreign language proficiency, knowledge of and concern for foreign cultures and international issues, attitudes toward their home country and its values, and career objectives and accomplishments. Student profiles indicate consistent patterns in motivation, achievement, and satisfaction that relate to the experience abroad. In their conclusion, the authors look at the implications of their findings in the context of our times and society and offer suggestions for some new directions for study abroad in the coming years. This analysis will be relevant for educational decision-makers, funding organizations, government, and the research community.

The twin objectives of the series Psychological Perspectives on Contemporary Educational Issues are: (1) to identify issues in education that are relevant to professional educators and researchers; and (2) to address those issues from research and theory in educational psychology, psychology, and related disciplines. The present volume, consisting of two focal chapters, commentaries, and final responses targets instructional strategies for improving students' learning in two of the traditional 'three R' areas, reading and 'rithmetic (mathematics), in the elementary school grades. The focal chapters in those two skill areas are written by leading contributors to the reading and mathematics research literatures, Cathy Collins Block for the reading section and Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama for the mathematics section. Few would dispute the essentiality of these two curricular domains in laying the foundation for the development of students' competencies in a vast array of academic disciplines in both the in- and out-of-school years that lie ahead. The present volume is intended for practitioners and researchers who are seeking the latest instructional research-based strategies for improving students' early reading and mathematics performance.

Hardbound. Intelligence is considered in its widest sense, representing diverse viewpoints and areas of specialization in this volume. Contributors represent an international network of intelligence and cognition researchers, coming from a wide range of countries including Germany, New Zealand, The Netherlands and the United States.This volume concentrates on a few points of special importance, that is, the changeability of intelligence and its relation to cognition. Most of the chapters in this work are original contributions to the field and were specially commissioned for this particular volume.

In this volume, David Geary provides a comprehensive theory that brings children's education into the 21st century, and provides directions for the development of a new discipline, evolutionary educational psychology. Geary presents the case that a scientifically grounded approach to children's schooling and, to a lesser degree, their later occupational interests can be informed by recent advances in the application of evolutionary theory to the understanding of the human brain, mind, and its development. He develops a taxonomy of evolved cognitive abilities and describes how, from an evolutionary perspective, these abilities are modified and refined during childhood. From there, he lays the framework for understanding the relation between evolved abilities, such as language, and the non-evolved competencies that are built from them with schooling, such as reading. Geary describes the mechanisms, such as working memory, that enable humans to transform evolved cognitive abilities into culturally important, school taught competencies. These are integrated with discussion of human intellectual history and cultural evolution, and the sources of children's motivation to learn inside and outside of the classroom. In all, this may well be the most revolutionary theory of children's schooling since Rousseau.

This study focuses on three issues which have been recurrent in the literature on intelligence during the last century: general intellectual capacity; the g factor; and how to influence the development of intelligence. The topics range from neuropsychology to intelligence, personality and information processing. Contributions by scholars from Canada, Europe and the United States are included, representing diverse view points in the field of research into the g factor and into the possibility of raising a person's level of intelligence. The first chapter provides an in-depth summary of research into differences between black and white performances on psychometric mental ability tests, while the second chapter provides a review of the research into race and sex differences in brain size and cognitive ability. Other topics covered include: the relationship between the g factor and infant intelligence; the cognitive correlates of intelligence and personality; an historical overview of the founders of the scientific study of intelligence, Binet and Galton; and a review of the mental speed approach. The volume concludes with a discussion of the effects of intervention programmes on accelerating the development of intelligence within the context of Piaget's criteria for the assessment of durable training methods.

This second volume in the series discusses such topics as working memory in writing, working memory as a source of individual differences in children's writing and modifying Hayes' and Flowers' model of skilled writing.

The twin objectives of the series Psychological Perspectives on Contemporary Educational Issues are: (1) to identify issues in education that are relevant to professional educators and researchers; and (2) to address those issues from research and theory in educational psychology, psychology, and related disciplines. The present volume, consisting of two focal chapters, commentaries, and final responses targets instructional strategies for improving students' learning in two of the traditional 'three R' areas, reading and 'rithmetic (mathematics), in the elementary school grades. The focal chapters in those two skill areas are written by leading contributors to the reading and mathematics research literatures, Cathy Collins Block for the reading section and Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama for the mathematics section. Few would dispute the essentiality of these two curricular domains in laying the foundation for the development of students' competencies in a vast array of academic disciplines in both the in- and out-of-school years that lie ahead. The present volume is intended for practitioners and researchers who are seeking the latest instructional research-based strategies for improving students' early reading and mathematics performance.

In this volume, David Geary provides a comprehensive theory that brings children's education into the 21st century, and provides directions for the development of a new discipline, evolutionary educational psychology. Geary presents the case that a scientifically grounded approach to children's schooling and, to a lesser degree, their later occupational interests can be informed by recent advances in the application of evolutionary theory to the understanding of the human brain, mind, and its development. He develops a taxonomy of evolved cognitive abilities and describes how, from an evolutionary perspective, these abilities are modified and refined during childhood. From there, he lays the framework for understanding the relation between evolved abilities, such as language, and the non-evolved competencies that are built from them with schooling, such as reading. Geary describes the mechanisms, such as working memory, that enable humans to transform evolved cognitive abilities into culturally important, school taught competencies. These are integrated with discussion of human intellectual history and cultural evolution, and the sources of children's motivation to learn inside and outside of the classroom. In all, this may well be the most revolutionary theory of children's schooling since Rousseau.