Social system perspective which belongs to systems theory has been elaborated comprehensively using its founders' ideas, and characteristics of schools have been explained consulting to this perspective. The course of social system idea has been reviewed along with its relation to other systems. How researchers who assumes schools as social…

As researchers, decision-makers, and practitioners focus on continuous improvement in education, local-level change is gaining importance. Yet, many local school improvement efforts fail to be fully implemented. Even those that are fully implemented often fail to sustain improvements because the schools are embedded in systems that face multiple…

The purpose of this case study was to explore the community of one purposely selected department of secondary social studies teachers. I aimed to provide insight into the nature of one community of congruence amid the many constraints and systemic pressures in school systems today. Many have suggested that education is a microcosm of larger…

In their introduction to the idea of a systems approach to understanding talent and giftedness, Ziegler and Phillipson broach the larger issue of the positivistic or mechanistic mindset to knowing and understanding that pervades much of what is called educational research. This worthy tactic brings to light the need to move away from the status…

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is being used increasingly to address health disparities and complex health issues. The authors propose that CBPR can benefit from a systems science framework to represent the complex and dynamic characteristics of a community and identify intervention points and potential "tipping points."…

This article considers the conditions that are necessary at system and local levels for teacher assessment to be valid, reliable and rigorous. With sustainable assessment cultures as a goal, the article examines how education systems can support local-level efforts for quality learning and dependable teacher assessment. This is achieved through…

Purpose: This article seeks to review the current state of workplace learning evaluation, to set out the rationale for evaluation along with the barriers that practitioners face when seeking to assess the effectiveness of training and development. Finally, it aims to propose a scientifically robust and practitioner friendly approach to evaluation.…

The purpose of this study is to verify whether pupils (15-16 years old) who have received technology education on a systemic approach of industrial systems, are better than other pupils (of the same age but from other academic domains such as literary ones or ones that are economics-based) at solving physical science problems which involve…

Organizations providing services to persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) are complex because of many interacting stakeholders with often different and competing interests. The combination of increased consumer demand and diminished resources makes organizational planning a challenge for the managers of such organizations. Such challenges…

Family Medicine first formally confronted systems thinking with the adoption of the biopsychosocial model for understanding disease in a holistic manner; this is a description of a natural system. More recently, Family Medicine has been consciously engaged in developing itself as a system for delivering health care, an artificial system. We make…

Introduction: This paper presents an initial proposal for a formal framework that, by studying the metric variables involved in information retrieval, can establish the sequence of events involved and how to perform it. Method: A systematic approach from the equations of Shannon and Weaver to establish the decidability of information retrieval…

Using international data on child well-being and educational attainment, this article compares child well-being in the United States to member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Multiple measures of child well-being are analyzed, such as material well-being (including poverty, unemployment, and income…

Today's complex societal problems require both critical thinking and an engaged citizenry. Current practices in higher education, such as service learning, suggest that experiential learning can serve as a vehicle to encourage students to become engaged citizens. However, critical thinking is not necessarily a part of every experiential learning…

Social media are increasingly being used for educational purposes. The first part of this article briefly reviews literature that reports on educational applications of social media tools. The second part discusses theories that may provide a basis for analyzing the processes that are relevant for individual learning and collective knowledge…

Scholars representing the field of systems science were asked to identify what they considered to be the most exciting and imaginative work currently being done in their field, as well as how that work might change our understanding. The scholars included Alexander Christakis, Debora Hammond, Michael Jackson, Alexander Laszlo, Ian Mitroff, Dave…