The pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in early 2020 has led to tremendous disruptions in education systems worldwide, including the closure of majority of education institutions and the shifting from face-to-face learning toward remote learning. More than 70% of the world's student population were affected by such a disruptive event,…

While on my own journey of personal development in action learning facilitation, I conducted a research project in response to the question: How do facilitators most effectively support Critical Action Learning (CAL)? From selecting the topic and establishing the methodology, through to collecting data and analysing the results, this account…

The University of Maryland--College Park initiated the First-Year Innovation & Research Experience (FIRE) in 2014 to provide authentic faculty-led research experiences, mentorship, and accelerated opportunity for first-year students from a wide range of academic backgrounds. To annually provide more than 600 new FIRE students with an authentic…

In the research project which formed part of my PhD study, I dealt with the topic of inequity in education. My main interest was to find out how (formal) educational careers can be fostered even if the starting position within the system is one which makes a successful educational career very difficult. Despite the fact that in the Austrian…

This case study provides an overview of an Action Research project that examines effective instruction-giving in the language classroom. The case describes each of the various phases of the Action Research cycle from identifying a researchable pedagogic puzzle or critical incident, collecting and analyzing classroom data about it, bringing about…

Course: Mixed-Method Communication Research Methods. Objective: The purpose of this semester-long activity is to provide students with opportunities to cultivate mixed-method communication research skills through a social justice-informed service-learning format. Completing this course, students will be able to: recognize the unique strengths of…

This article summarizes the methods, observations, challenges and implications for exploratory analysis drawn from two learning analytics research projects. The cases include an analysis of a games-based virtual performance assessment and an analysis of data from 52,000 students over a 5-year period at a large Australian university. The complex…

Drawing on the experience of training graduate students and researchers in qualitative and mixed-methods analysis since the mid-1990s, the authors reflect on the evolution of a multidisciplinary graduate course developed in a Canadian university since 2007. The hands-on/hands-off course design based on the use of NVivo was developed in parallel…

This article reports on the findings of a PhD research project into the improvisatory nature of teacher expertise. The data are taken from a series of comparative case studies of seven experienced teachers working in secondary schools in the South West of England and who have been identified as being expert within their school setting. Constant…

As part of a research project to evaluate the effects of sand and gravel mining on water quality, students were trained to analyze their own drinking water for simple quality indicators. Indicators analyzed were pH, conductivity, hardness, nitrate, chloride, and dissolved iron. Approximately 523 analyses were completed by students between 2006 and…

Teacher research is an extension of good teaching, observing students closely, analyzing their needs, and adjusting the curriculum to fit the needs of all. In this completely updated second edition of their definitive work, Ruth Shagoury and Brenda Miller Power present a framework for teacher research along with an extensive collection of…

The concept of "implementation fidelity" is broadly used to capture the extent to which an intervention is executed as intended by the designers of the intervention (Century, Rudnick, & Freeman, 2010; Huntley, 2005, McNaught, Tarr, & Sears, 2010, Munter, 2010). Though implementation fidelity instruments are often used to assess…

Ralph LaRossa's (2012) article on the multidimensional world of qualitative research provides family scientists with a set of innovative tools to guide writing and reviewing. He proffered an engaging challenge: to view the "Journal of Marriage and Family" ("JMF") as a meeting place of scholars, a thought community (Zerubavel, 1997), even a culture…

This book provides invaluable guidance for thinking through and planning a qualitative study. Rather than offering recipes for specific techniques, master storyteller Robert Stake stimulates readers to discover "how things work" in organizations, programs, communities, and other systems. Topics range from identifying a research question to…

Teachers face the challenge of introducing ecological concepts in an authentic way that students can apply to their lives and surroundings. Fieldwork helps achieve this goal and can have a range of beneficial impacts on participants, but opportunities to conduct fieldwork can be limited, especially in urban environments. Urban environments are…