The requirement in the USA of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) that every classroom has a highly qualified teacher, coupled with the current high-stakes testing environment, creates the need for all principals to be knowledgeable about quality staff development systems. One aspect of effective staff development is whether teachers adopt the…

This paper intends to provide an overview of the reorientation of education in China in the period 1998-2009 with regard to development issues. During this time, the focus has shifted gradually from the environment and health to education for sustainable development. The article centres on highlighting the main interventions and strategies adopted…

If communication research is to make a greater difference in society, change is needed in the ways that communication scholarship is taught to and produced by students. To do so, I contend that changes must occur in two areas. First, change must occur at the undergraduate level where students must be given the opportunity to become directly…

A critical challenge in urban science education is determining how to provide empowering science learning experiences for all students. In an effort to address the achievement gap in science education, I have focused on the concept of ownership, specifically when and how students gain ownership in science learning. This paper presents a teacher…

Little research to date explores parental experiences of early intervention. This study uses action research over a six-month period to explore the expectations and experiences of parents whose children attended an early-intervention group for speech/language impairments. This intervention programme was facilitated by a speech and language…

A forum is a valuable tool to foster reflection in an in-depth discussion; however, it forces the course mediator to continually pay close attention in order to coordinate learners' activities. Moreover, monitoring a forum is time consuming given that it is impossible to know in advance when new messages are going to be posted. Additionally, a…

Forty years since the seminal Swampscott Conference, the principles of community psychology transcend multiple areas of action and research, as well as international boundaries. The extensive development of community psychology offers an opportunity to examine from where the field has come and where it is going. Yet, a systematic approach to…

The general aim of this paper is to examine how videogames, supported by conversations and theatrical performances in the classroom, can contribute to the development of narrative thought as present in written compositions in various contexts. Given that one of the primary ecological influences on children is the mass media, we discuss how media…

This article describes an adaptation of action research that can be used specifically for the purposes of reviewing educational courses where the participants move out of the research process after one cycle. The author found a limit to the intentional use of action research in her study of a tertiary course that was being offered within the…

This article revisits the concept of teachers as learners within the context of radical changes that have taken place within the education system in England over the past 25 years. The concept of "professional courage" is discussed and examined in relation to questions and issues raised by Paulo Freire in a series of letters to teachers…

This paper is based on the assumption that action research always affects the micropolitical balance characteristic of a certain school setting. The authors claim that micropolitics, that is the patterns of formal power and informal influence, has largely been neglected in the literature on action research in schools. This means that action…

This article presents a model for action research in family practice. It reviews three research projects used by the authors over the past decade. Drawing on learning from each, the article discusses a model for undertaking ongoing, embedded action research in organisational settings. The contribution that action methods can make to the…

In this article, Gitlin and Peck argue that much of the development of action research has been based on a reconstructed view of science (i.e., a science that is more contextual, less law-like, less causal, but still accurately represents reality and is teacher centered as opposed to researcher centered). In contrast to this reconstructed view of…

Teachers and administrators must be able to identify clearly what techniques are effective at improving student learning, which ones are not, and how to develop a set of successful instructional practices based on that knowledge. Research is not typically something that many K-12 teachers think about as part of their regular planning regimen. Many…

As a reflective practitioner of higher education, Margaret Farren seeks to contribute to a knowledge base of professional practice by using a "living educational theory" form of action research in her approach to teaching and learning. She focuses her research on the Masters program in e-learning at Dublin City University where professional…