This article illustrates the story of a primary school in South Auckland, New Zealand, considering the state of well-being of its pupils. Situated in a deprived area with many people living in poverty, parts of the community caught in inter-gang rivalry, some children consider the school environment to be a safer place to be. Elements of the early…

We report on the incorporation of e-book readers into the delivery of two distance-taught master's programmes in Occupational Psychology (OP) and one in Education at the University of Leicester, UK. The programmes attract work-based practitioners in OP and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, respectively. Challenges in curriculum…

Much time is invested by markers in providing feedback to students that is personalised, aimed at providing them with information to feed forward into their next piece of work. Given the investment of time by tutors in the feedback process, we were necessarily concerned with how it is used by students and keen to explore and develop practice. This…

Supporting Teachers as Action Researchers (STAR) explores how school improvement initiatives may be sustained over time. It represents stage one of a broader investigation into how teachers' professional learning may be enhanced by positioning teachers as practitioner researchers and professionals who are capable of generating change from within…

The purpose of the mix-methods action research study was to seek how the changes in students' perceptions about teacher classroom interpersonal behaviors, the four efficacy sources and mathematics self-efficacy beliefs were related. The methods used to accomplish this were: descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient…

It has become apparent that in recent years the issue of childhood obesity is becoming the number one health risk among children in the United States. Making sure that children participate in daily physical education class is one way to combat the obesity epidemic. The purpose of this action research project was to improve the active participation…

Information systems (IS) programs have been struggling with declining enrollment since 2001. The IS community has addressed the enrollment crisis by sharing best practices in journals and at conferences. Typically, such practices focus on improving enrollment through either (1) recruitment events or (2) program/curriculum development initiatives.…

This article discusses an investigation conducted to identify challenges associated with teaching research methods in a distance education context. Constructivist learning was used as conceptual framework, in particular socio-constructivist theories, activity theory and Rich environments for active learning (REALs). Two research modules in a…

This paper reports the observations made and experience gained from developing and delivering an online quantitative methods course for Business undergraduates. Inspired by issues and challenges experienced in developing the online course, a model is advanced to address the question of how to guide the design, development, and delivery of…

The adoption level of emerging web technologies is on the rise in academic settings. However, a major obstacle in the practice of web-based instruction is the limited understanding of learners' characteristics and perceptions about technology use. Thus there is a need to understand the relationship between students' learning styles and their…

The study investigated how to facilitate teachers in developing their work in improving the teaching and learning of children with visual impairment (CVI) accommodated in ordinary classrooms. The study takes the form of collaborative action research where the researcher works in collaboration with the teachers. The project is being conducted in…

Teacher research--often called "action research"--is an intentional and systematic inquiry into one's own classroom practice with the goal of improved student learning (Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1993). In this article, the authors present a teacher research project undertaken to improve student understanding of the gas laws in a high…

Playfulness steering is an emerging approach in educational game design and play. The integration of arithmetical computation, game strategy, and teamwork into one game allows players to interactively "steer" the playfulness and enhance learning. In this paper an evolutionary contest game was designed and implemented to examine the…

This paper describes a study of the integration of graduate attributes into Business education using an online system to facilitate the process. "ReView" is a system that provides students with criteria-based tutor feedback on assessment tasks and also provides opportunities for online student self-assessment. Setup incorporates a…

The purpose of this action research project report was to reduce bullying in middle school students through the use of student-leaders. Twenty-eight 8th graders, two counselors, and 24 teachers participated for a total of 54 participants. The study was conducted between September 11, 2007, and December 20, 2007. This project focused on four types…