Across the OECD, enormous effort and investment has been made to reinforce the quality, production and use of education research in policy and practice. Despite this, using research in education remains a challenge for many countries and systems. The OECD launched the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project to respond to this…

The book brings together contributions from curriculum history, cultural studies, visual cultures, and science and technology studies to explore the international mobilizations of the sciences related to education during the post-World War Two years. Crossing the boundaries of education and science studies, it uniquely examines how the desires of…

Globalization has become one of the most recurrent concepts in social and political sciences. More often than not, however, the concept is handled without much of a properly articulated theory capable of explaining its historical origin and expansion. For education researchers attempting to elucidate how global changes and processes affect their…

The authors discuss the challenges that researchers from university and community systems face in gaining access to and partnering with K-12 school systems to conduct research. Borrowing from Szapocznik, Hervis, and Schwartz's (2003) brief strategic family theory and therapy and Bronfenbrenner's (1979, 1986) ecological systems theory, the authors…

An alternative research methodology is presented which focuses on the aims and values of education while attending to the learner as an elaborate, dynamic, everchanging total system. A summary covers the reactive, preactive, proactive, and spiralling learner systems, each of which meet the definitional system requirement of being dynamic, having a…

A research-derived integrated system of curriculum development and instructional delivery called NEBEAT (Needs Based Education and Training) is described in relation to more traditional-behaviorally-based systems models. Four major components of curriculum design are examined as features which differentiate NEBEAT from its antecedents. (Author/MBR)

Discusses difficulties in defining instructional systems design (ISD) and presents five ways the field is viewed, ranging from a narrow view emphasizing media selection to a complete ISD view. The ISD view emphasizes five main components: educational theory and research, system analysis, diffusion, consulting/interpersonal relations, and project…

This is one of a series of reports based on an ongoing reality test of systemic evaluation for instructional decision making. This feasibility study is being carried out by the Center for the Study of Evaluation with the Laboratory in School and Community Relations at a suburban Los Angeles high school (called Site A). Viewing a school as a…

Reviews the current state of educational technology, discusses some problems perceived by experts in the field, and suggests directions for its future. Systematic versus systemic theories of the field are emphasized, and the role of research in improving learner performance is described. (32 references) (LRW)

Future research initiatives on learning and instruction are considered to be of most worth if grounded in general systems theory and if multiple research methods are used. Discussed are an information processing theory and a theory for the structure and structuring of stored information. (MNS)

The report describes activities conducted during a 12-month baseline period preceding a series of longitudinal studies of the costs and effects of various types of early intervention with handicapped children conducted by the Early Intervention Research Institute at Utah State University. A systems theory perspective forms the theoretical base for…

The French sociologist Jacques Ellul has had great influence on contemporary thought about the role of science and technology in the emerging global society. His books "The Technological Society" (1954) and "The Technological System" (1980) characterize the new social context as a tightly interlocked global technological system…

In Latin American education systems the inspectorate is an administrative level linking the central national educational administration to the local operations level. Traditionally the inspector's function has been to enforce fulfillment of pedagogical and administrative norms at the local level and to transmit pertinent information on achievement…

This paper describes a methodology for helping institutional research assess its roles and its effectiveness in supporting decision-making at all institutional levels. The paper discusses how to meet this goal by planning, doing, checking, and acting. Planning requires the understanding of the roles of the data custodian, the broker, and the…

A coauthor of a book on the history of thought and practice in educational administration reflects on issues raised during the writing of the book as follows: (1) Categories of administrative thought are difficult to establish. Two categories were derived from Richard Scott's rational systems approach--scientific management and bureaucracy. The…