Numerous activities and measures can be observed in the context of digitization. However, these are often not interrelated or sufficiently anchored institutionally and structurally with regard to overarching goals. The aim of this study is therefore to carry out a theory-based clustering of connotations with the concept of digit(al)ization in…

Definitions of rurality in education research are inconsistent, making generalization across studies difficult at best. We review published research in rural education between 2005 and 2015 (n = 17) and characterize the way each defined rural. A common technique for classifying rural schools is the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES)…

A large body of research in the learning sciences has focused on students' commonsense science knowledge--the everyday knowledge of the natural world that is gained outside of formal instruction. Although researchers studying commonsense science have employed a variety of methods, 1-on-1 clinical interviews have played a unique role. The data…

The Spring 2012 SQR: "Framing Campus Sustainability," features stories that frame the evolving concept of sustainability in higher education. Included in this issue are a snapshot of ratings-to-date, a focus on credits within the Operations (OP) category, and insights into how institutions are defining and interpreting the evolving…

This paper introduces a method for mining multiple-choice assessment data for similarity of the concepts represented by the multiple choice responses. The resulting similarity matrix can be used to visualize the distance between concepts in a lower-dimensional space. This gives an instructor a visualization of the relative difficulty of concepts…

A key component of academic development is the improvement of teaching with the express purpose of improving student learning. To achieve that end, we work toward helping faculty members develop increasingly sophisticated and complex conceptions of teaching so that they might more readily think about teaching in new ways. Models of learning and…

Using the UK experience as a template, this paper explores the concept of competencies as a viable bridge to employer engagement. In this context, the definition of competency coalesces into three primary interpretations (input, output and "behaviour"), leading to three applications: work related skill sets, standards and…

Studies of concept formation in infancy have demonstrated that certain experimental settings can elicit spontaneous behavior from infants which has been called "sorting" or "object grouping". This study pursues the issue of early sorting with infants as young as 6 months, and with a broader range of stimuli than has been used…

The phenomenon of using progress monitoring data to inform literacy instruction was explored in the context of four schools during their 2nd year of Reading First implementation. Open-ended interviews and surveys from 10 teachers, purposefully selected for maximum variation in effectiveness and skills and resistance to using data to inform…

In the first part of this paper, conceptions of trainee teachers are defined, together with their importance for the process of teacher education. Many studies concerning teacher conceptions and models of teacher development show that the conceptions of instruction, knowledge, and teacher and learner roles are a key part of the teacher's…

To investigate how a child organizes new objects and how categories function for a chid, twelve 6- and twelve 8-year-olds were individually given several sorting tasks involving 21 three-dimensional nonsense objects. The child was exposed to all the objects; three objects were pointed out and withdrawn; and then the child was asked to describe…

The concept of psychological well-being is introduced, and scales to measure three of its different facets are described and applied to 1655 British respondents. Results from measures of positive and negative affect are compared with North American findings, and hypotheses are broadly confirmed. Two clusters of specific anxiety items are…

This study, based on a PhD dissertation submitted to UCLA and supported by the National Institutes of Health, indicates the extent to which children vary in the type of organization they impose on stimuli and the extent to which organization can be influenced by training. (Author/AP)