This study describes perspectives of participants in a substance abuse and HIV prevention (HIVP) program targeted to middle school students and families in an urban Phoenix, Arizona, school district. Data collection and analyses complement past quasi-experimental, pre/post designs which found the program to be successful in terms of increasing…

The internet has become an indispensable tool in the twenty first century. However, the development may be slowed by a lack of appropriate facilities in less developed nations. A study of existing facilities in Burkina Faso was undertaken to answer five questions on the participants' perspectives on internet usage: (a) how do the participants…

This article reports on the experiences of six participants in a Master's degree in Education (M.Ed.) programme based at the University of Exeter who had all contributed to a collection of academic papers on educational research in a distributed community. The programme was a distance learning one which had a special focus on application of ideas…

Background/context: Professional development is an important element of professional practice and teachers are expected to engage in activities that not only improve practice but also have a positive impact on pupil learning. Physical educators worldwide have acknowledged the need to improve the continuing education of teachers and have called…

To help achieve national consistency of assessment and reporting in the Australian Vocational Education and Training sector, there is a need to develop a set of national principles for graded performance assessment. This paper challenges a number of prevailing principles from both a theoretical and assessment perspective, namely that grades must…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how transfer students interact with a higher education setting that is reacting to new state-mandated accountability goals, and to understand higher education institutions and their environments when faced with new accountability measures. The larger purpose of the study is to develop a grounded…

This research examines the work of middle managers in English further education colleges holding a range of responsibilities. Case study research at four colleges drew on data from senior managers, middle managers and their teams, college documents and observation of meetings. The enquiry focused upon the aspects of role performed by the managers,…

Starting school is an important time for young children, their families and educators. Data gathered from interviews and questionnaire responses from approximately 300 parents, 300 educators and 300 children have been used to describe the most important issues for children, parents and educators as children start school in New South Wales,…

Understanding how students learn is a common goal for most educators; however pedagogical research in rehabilitation counselor education is limited. This study employed action research to investigate how six students learned beginning counseling skills in a rehabilitation counseling practicum class. Approximately 150 data points were analyzed by…

This research examines Turkish pre-service elementary science teachers' understandings of teaching science in an inquiry-based learning environment. Thirty-five prospective teachers who attended to one of the big teacher training institutions in Istanbul participated in this study. Data were collected via course assignments and inclass activities…

Purpose: The purpose of this research study was to examine the role perceptions of superintendents and their supervisors in Palestine regarding the roles and training needs of superintendents. It was part of a larger study conducted by the Department of Administration and Educational Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.…

Reform in the fields of adolescent and content area literacy have focused on broadening a definition of literacy beyond the ability to read and write. In a broader definition the language processes of reading, writing, speaking and listening become literacy tools to engage students in the learning of concepts and afford the learner ways to…

As globalization proceeded, the rights of sexual minority groups have become one of the human rights that cannot be ignored. However, recognizing sexuality as a human right and promoting educational practices which affect human rights policies, have been implemented mainly in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. For example, the…

We aim to clarify Matthew Lipman's definition of critical thinking. The research project was conducted during a complete school year among eight groups of pupils from three cultural contexts: Australia, Mexico and Quebec. We worked in an inductive manner, inspired by the grounded theory approach, and analysed transcripts of the pupils' exchanges…

In this article some preliminary data from an ongoing exploration of student teachers' development of professional identities are explored. This project uses hermeneutic techniques to develop a set of categories which characterise students' articulation of their understanding. This is related to the Aristotelian categories of "praxis",…