A learning environment survey can be easily used in the science classroom to evaluate new instructional approaches, to spark enthusiasm, and to produce evidence showing that science teachers are indeed becoming a reflective practitioner. Conducting learning environment research in the classroom is personally rewarding as well. It allows science…

In 1995 the political authorities of French-speaking Belgium introduced a major reform in the structure of the kindergarten and primary curriculum. It prescribed cycles of study and forbade grade repetition within the stages, which last for 5 years and 4 years, respectively. In addition, the reform aimed to increase equality of results at…

The results of an action research project that was designed to explore what lessons could be learned from using an innovative strategy to help high school students write more authentically are described. A number of factors that led to the students' success are cited and examples of the poems are included that resulted from this innovative…

There is little reason why educational research in Australia should be progressive and highly developed given that its history and direction are subject to the economic and political determinants of an increasingly conservative and uncertain world. Whether or not educational research is an entirely derivative field or a semi-distinctive social…

Poor white children, often with roots in Appalachia, can present puzzling and intractable challenges for the multicultural educator. These students are not considered in multicultural textbooks, yet they face language and dialect issues, low educational attainment, under-representation in curriculum, and negative cultural stereotypes. This article…

The field of research in environmental education has experienced several changes in orientation in its first 25 or so years. In the period of the 70s and 80s, the most visible approach to environmental education research was clearly applied science in nature. From the late 80s/early 90s there has been a period of intense debate about research in…

Action-oriented research is a methodological approach for doing collaborative research with practitioners and community partners that can inform practice, programs, community development, and policy while contributing to the scientific knowledge base. This article discusses how family scholars can use action-oriented research to work together with…

Purpose: The theoretical aim of the research in this paper is to conceptualize learning in the context of communicative action research, specifically in the context of democratic dialogue. The empirical aim is to show how and in which conditions action research projects, based on democratic dialogue, work. Design/methodology/approach: In the…

Participation of the "target group" is a key concept in working on empowerment in health education. However, it raises many questions and is not without struggle. I will discuss the findings from a study into the state of the art of empowerment in health education, which includes a literature review and the analysis of eight Dutch…

An effective mode of reflective practice and reflexivity is through personal professional narrative and story exploration. All professional and personal experience is naturally storied; telling or writing stories are prime human ways of understanding, communicating and remembering. Narratives of vital or key areas of professional experience can be…

Two decades ago Wilf Carr and Stephen Kemmis published "Becoming Critical". Its impact upon burgeoning action research, particularly in the field of education, has been substantial and sustained. However, times have changed. The purpose of this article is to revisit this influential text and explore its currency today. The article is…

Practitioner research lends itself to situations in which a school wishes to examine and improve practice. This is an account of one middle-sized primary school's attempt to understand the nature of and need for a variety of forms of curriculum leadership by engaging in a facilitated action research project. Both theory and current school practice…

This article focuses on a participatory research project designed to promote student use of digital video to explore conceptions of health and wellness. We have viewed aspects of student resistance through the cultural perspectives that guide the Aboriginal education programs involved with the study. In presenting this piece, we have experimented…

Introduction: Action Research is a formative study of progress commonly practiced by teachers in schools. Basically an action research is a spiral process that includes problem investigation, taking action & fact-finding about the result of action. It enables a teacher to adopt/craft most appropriate strategy within its own teaching…

This study examined student artwork as free expression in order to conduct an analysis of diaspora as related to urban, middle school students learning English. Subjects consisted of middle school students representing a variety of countries with Spanish being the primary first language of the majority of participants. Using a qualitative approach…