This study investigated the effects of different versions of Web‐based instruction focused on text structure on fifth‐ and seventh‐grade students' reading comprehension. Stratified random assignment was employed in a two‐factor experiment embedded within a pretest and multiple posttests design (immediate and four‐month delayed posttests). The two factors were type of feedback provided by the Web‐based tutor (elaborated vs. simple feedback) and the motivational factor of choice of text topics in practice lessons (student choice of texts vs. no choice). These factors were examined to learn how they affected performance after the six‐month, 90‐minutes/week intervention. Students who received elaborated feedback performed better on a standardized test of reading comprehension than students who received simple feedback. Learning how to attend to errors from the elaborated feedback tutor yielded large gains in test performance. Simple feedback did not help the least skilled third of readers move from complete lack of competency to competency using the structure strategy with problem‐and‐solution text. Choice between two topics for practice lessons did not increase reading comprehension. Substantial effects sizes were found from pretest to posttest on various measures of reading comprehension: recall, strategy competence, and standardized reading comprehension test scores. Maintenance of performance over summer break was found for most measures. The study informs research and teaching about Web‐based reading tutors, feedback, comprehension, and top‐level text structure. [Note: Bonnie Meyer discusses the research presented in this article in a podcast at the “Voice of Literacy”: http://www.voiceofliteracy.org/posts/36682.] لقد فحصت هذه الدراسة تأثيرات أنواع مختلفة من التعليم المبني على الشبكة العالمية المركز على تركيب النص الذي يناسب طلاب الصفوف الخامسة إلى السابعة في استيعاب القراءة. ويتم توظيف واجباً عشوائياً مختلف المراحل في فحص ذات العنصرين يشمل تصميمه اختبار قبلي وعدة اختبارات بعدية (مباشرة وبعد مدة أربعة أشهر). وكان العنصر من العنصرين نوعاً من التغذية الراجعة المتوفرة من المدرس الخصوصي الموجود على الشبكة العالمية (التغذية الراجعة المفصلة مقابل المبسطة) وعنصر اختيار مواضيع النصوص الحافز في الدروس الممارسة (اختيار النصوص على يد الطالب مقابل عدم وجود الاختيار). وقد تم فحص هاذين العنصرين للفهم كيف أثرا في الأداء بعد التدخل الذي مضى 90 دقيقة في الأسبوع لمدة ستة أشهر. وقد أدى الطلاب الذين استلموا التغذية الراجعة تأدية أفضل في امتحان قرائي معياري من الطلاب الذين استلموا التغذية المبسطة. إن التعلم كيف يتم متناول الأخطاء من التغذية الراجعة المفصلة لدى المدرس الخصوصي أنتج تقدمات كبيرة في الأداء على الامتحان. وقد لم تساعد التغذية الراجعة القارئ ذا المهارة الأكثر انخفاضاً للانتقال من عدم وجود الكفاءة نهائياً إلى الكفاءة في استخدام الإستراتيجية التركيبية بالنسبة لمشاكل النص وحلها. ولكن لم يحسن الاختيار بين الموضوعين في الدروس الممارسة الاستيعاب القرائي. وقد تم إيجاد تأثيرات في بالغة الأحجام من الاختبار القبلي إلى البعدي من حيث مقاييس استيعاب القراءة المتنوعة: الاسترجاع والكفاءة الأستراتيجية والعلامات من اختبارات استيعا...

is a PhD student in Educational Psychology at Penn State. Before working on her PhD, she taught high school mathematics for 3 years. She has worked on diverse projects about learning, including research about discourse, reading, statistics, algebra, and now Statics. Her primary research focus remains improving the quality of mathematics teaching.

Teachers routinely make decisions regarding the best pedagogical methods for altering students' understandings about academic content. Such practices are at the root of teaching as persuasion, and have been shown to be related to academic achievement. Yet very little research has investigated the extent to which individuals learning to be teachers (i.e., preservice teachers) feel they are capable of performing the practices underlying teaching as persuasion. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which preservice teachers see themselves as capable of performing persuasive pedagogical practices compared to more general teaching practices as operationalized on well-researched measures of teacher efficacy. Results indicated that undergraduates enrolled in preservice teacher education courses perceived themselves as less capable of performing persuasive pedagogical practices than more generally accepted practices. In addition, preservice teachers perceived they were more capable of altering students' knowledge about content than at modifying their beliefs about content. Implications for research and practice are forwarded.

Mathematics teachers face a myriad of instructional obstacles. Since the early 1990s, mathematics education researchers have proposed the use of constructivist practices to counteract these ever-prevalent obstacles. While we do give credit to the choices of instructional activities the constructivist paradigm promotes, there are problems with its use as the foundation of mathematics pedagogy (e.g., Phillips, Educational Researcher 24: 5-12 1995; Simon, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 26: 114-145 1995). In this paper, we will analyze and review the literature pertaining to the conceptual tenets and operational practices of constructivism, and the viability of these practices for meeting the professional teaching standards proposed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM; 2000). We will then review the literature pertaining to a paradigm of teaching that may be more applicable, that of persuasive pedagogical practices, and the ways in which these practices can differentially meet the goals of the mathematics standards. The differences between constructivism and persuasive pedagogy lead us to believe that the adoption of the theory of teaching as persuasion, or persuasive pedagogy, may be more appropriate for learning mathematics and the identification and correction of misconceptions. Further, these pedagogical practices correspond with suggestions for mathematical discourse provided by NCTM (2000).

Penn State, where he has been on the faculty since 1985. His work in engineering education involves curricular reform, teaching and learning innovations, faculty development, and assessment. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of combustion and thermal sciences. He can be contacted at