To broaden the scope of innovation that leverages contemporary technologies, education sectors worldwide are depending more and more on creative technological tools. On the other hand, not much research has been done on how these tools are adopted and used, or how they can improve decision-making in non-Western contexts. As a result, the goal of…

Education policy continues to press for increased use of research evidence in decision-making, yet decades of research point to weak links between research and practice. We see evidence-informed improvement not as a problem with schools, but with a larger evidence-use ecosystem. As a step toward building and strengthening multidirectional paths…

In support of the Every Child Ready Chicago initiative, Start Early has begun to explore the creation of a Chicago early childhood research consortium that would bring together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, families, and community representatives across sectors in a robust, long-term research-practice partnership focused on helping…

This conceptual paper suggests and elaborates on the use of physiological metaphors pertaining to the systems and parts of the body as an approach for fostering an understanding of organizational theories among students of educational administration. The importance of this pursuit is related to the recognition that the students often reject the…

Research perspectives on teacher evaluation present evaluators with a set of possible acts. Local evaluation systems, on the other hand, specify a permissible set of acts from the total universe. The acts specified within a given locality act as conditions for teacher action. Using the sampling and analytical procedures of grounded theory, this…

As response to intervention (RTI) is adopted by increasing numbers of schools and districts, knowledge about "what works" continues to grow. This much-needed book analyzes the key components of RTI service delivery and identifies the characteristics of successful implementation. Critically reviewing the available research, leading authorities…

Knowledge translation (KT) interventions can facilitate the successful implementation of best practices by engaging and actively involving various stakeholders in the change process. However, for novices, the design of KT interventions can be overwhelming. In this article, we describe our experience as participants in a problem-based case study on…

Intuition usually is defined as the capability to act or decide appropriately without deliberately and consciously balancing alternatives, without following a certain rule or routine, and possibly without awareness (Gigerenzer, 2007; Hogarth, 2001; Klein, 2003; Myers, 2002). It allows action which is quick (e.g. reaction to a challenging…

Learning participation only makes sense if it is purposeful. From our perspective its primary purpose is to achieve more effective managing in situations of complexity and change. We describe our evolving understandings and practices (a praxeology) for Systems Practice for managing complexity, built on 30 years of developing supported open…

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…

This document contains 14 papers from the skills for the new millennium section of an international conference on vocational education and training (VET) for lifelong learning in the information era. The following papers are included: "Research on Vocational Education and Training as a Field for Knowledge Development--Starting Points for the…