This study examines the reference societies of Norway and Sweden embedded in their education policy documents. We examined 4,260 bibliographic references in 19 white papers and green papers prepared for the 2016/2020 renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway and the 2015/2018 Knowledge Achievement Reform in Sweden. In addition, we…

Seeing that the culture and governance of competition determines relations among social actors, we turn to the concept of referentiality to investigate the institutional order of competition in higher education. Defining referentiality as the description of a model standard for comparison, this study explores how higher education organizations…

In this manuscript, we discuss how we, four women scholar-practitioners of color (WSPoC), utilize their cultural intuition (CI) to navigate the work place and academia in the context of our professional roles situated within STEM-M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics-Medicine) K-16 setting. We collectively shared our…

Teacher judgments impact on students' academic development, yet studies have revealed only modest judgment accuracy. Identifying biases hampering judgment accuracy is crucial. The present study scrutinized one such bias, namely reference group effects on teacher judgments (i.e., systematic relations between class-average ability and teacher…

Accommodations are commonly provided to address language-related barriers students may experience during testing. Research on the validity of scores from accommodated test administrations remains somewhat inconclusive. The current study investigated item response patterns to understand whether accommodations, as used in practice among English…

Problem- and project-based learning (PBL) has been seen as one of the pedagogical models to bridge the knowledge gab between education and work. This article reports a study of students' preparedness from a systemic PBL university to enter work life. Theoretically, a conceptual understanding of a systemic PBL is presented including four elements:…

This study compares a sample of 223 adopted adolescents with a nonadopted reference group representative of the Spanish adolescent population from the "Spanish Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study." Variables related to the family context, peers, school context, and emotional well-being are compared. Adoptees are not…

The use of reference groups made up of members of the population being researched has been encouraged within the qualitative research literature. This paper describes the use of reference groups made up of children and young people and promotes them as a space within which co-reflexive activities can help researchers reconsider their research…

According to social referencing theory, cues peers take from positive and negative teacher behavior toward a student affect the student's peer liking and disliking status. The present study was the first to test the hypothesized mediation model connecting teacher behavior with peer liking and disliking status, via peer perceptions of teacher…

Co-morbidity of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and the impact of DCD on quality-of-life (QOL) was investigated in 65 5-8 year old children with SLI (43 boys, age 6.8 [plus or minus] 0.8; 22 girls, age 6.6 [plus or minus] 0.8). The prevalence of DCD was assessed using DSM-IV-TR criteria…

Using families as the analytical focus, this study informs the field of informal science education with a focus on the role of prior experiences in family science conversations during nature walks at an outdoor-based nature center. Through video-based research, the team analyzed 16 families during walks at a nature center. Each family's prior…

This study explores benevolent action among Pentecostals in the USA using a congregational questionnaire survey of worshippers among the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) (N = 1522). The influence of religiosity and the socialization of a perceived relationship of love with God (Godly Love) are explored, while controlling for background variables. The…

Teachers are often asked to nominate students for enrichment programs for gifted children, and studies have repeatedly indicated that students' intelligence is related to their likelihood of being nominated as gifted. However, it is unknown whether class-average levels of intelligence influence teachers' nominations as suggested by theory--and…

MMPI-2 scores from a parent competency sample (N = 136 parents) are compared with a previously published data set of MMPI-2 scores for child custody litigants (N = 508 parents; Bathurst et al., 1997). Independent samples t tests yielded significant and in some cases substantial differences on the standard MMPI-2 clinical scales (especially Scales…

The article describes the founding principles, work program, and accomplishments of a Reference Group with both expert and layperson stakeholders for the corrosion of copper canisters in a proposed deep repository in Sweden for spent nuclear fuel. The article sets the Reference Group as a participatory effort within a broader context of…