This paper examines the construct measured by automated essay scoring (AES) systems. AES systems measure features of the text structure, linguistic structure, and conventional print form of essays; as such, the systems primarily measure text production skills. In the current state-of-the-art, AES provide little direct evidence about such matters…

Discourse analysis, as Murcia and Olshtain (2000) assume, is a vast study of language in use that extends beyond sentence level, and it involves a more cognitive and social perspective on language use and communication exchanges. Holding a wide range of phenomena about language with society, culture and thought, discourse analysis contains various…

This paper is concerned with how refugee stories can be used as the means of exploring values and developing intercultural understanding in the English classroom. To illustrate this possibility, André Dao's (2005) "Vuot Bien--The Search for Freedom: Huong Thi Nguen's Story," about the impact of war and oppression on people's lives,…

College instructors often teach scientific thinking by asking students to review and analyze a primary research article. The main purpose of this study was to explore how classroom response systems (CRS) could help impact the quality of written analysis papers submitted for this assignment by students taking 100-level biology courses at a…

This paper analyses Swedish language-in-education policy and planning in the field of minority language education. In recent years, various criticisms have pointed to the discrepancy between these two processes in mother tongue instruction (MTI) at compulsory schools. The general dissatisfaction expressed by some representatives of language…

In the United States there is such incredible complacency about both the meaning of democracy and America's position as the great democratic nation that there is very little, if any, public debate on what is meant by democracy and what responsibilities Americans bear as a democratic nation. In response to the editors' growing recognition of the…

Tsetsos, Usher, and Chater (2010) presented several criticisms of decision field theory (DFT) involving its distance function, instability under externally controlled stopping times, and lack of robustness to various multialternative choice scenarios. Here, we counter those claims with a specification of a distance function based on the…

This essay offers a critique of the dominant music education paradigm by challenging the myth of the musician as the locus of music making. Exploring the concept of the "musician" through three different ways of conceptualizing the arts, the essay offers a strategy for recasting the fundamental assumptions that underlie music education as a…

In our article (Storm, Tressoldi, & Di Risio, 2010), we claimed that the ganzfeld experimental design has proved to be consistent and reliable. However, Hyman (2010) argues that the overall evidence for psi is, in fact, contradictory and elusive. We present a case for psi research that undermines Hyman's argument. First, we give examples from…

This paper offers a brief reading of the history of theatre education and applied theatre as a way to reflect on the principles and values that have informed their development. It argues that a critical genealogy of this history suggests that theatrical experiments in educational and community settings have always responded creatively and…

Several studies have documented that teaching methods in HE (generally involves work towards a university or college level education), are the most important aspect of a curriculum. This is because they serve as an interface between the learners and the philosophy of the curriculum. It is, however, difficult to define how knowledge is…

This paper replies to points raised by the editors of the "ABS Guide", Huw Morris, Charles Harvey, Aidan Kelly and Michael Rowlinson (2011) "Accounting Education: an international journal", 20(6), pp. 561-573) in response to a paper published in a previous issue of "Accounting Education" (Hussain, S. (2011)…

"The Road" has been an important part of the author's English IV Honors course for several years now. Undeniably bleak, it details a father and son's journey through a seared, post-apocalyptic wasteland. As they travel through the burnt remains of America, they are threatened by starvation, dehydration, and scattered, hostile humans. Although his…

Ziegler and Phillipson (Z&P) advance an interesting and ambitious proposal, whereby current analytical/mechanistic theories of gifted education are replaced by systemic theories. In this commentary, the author focuses on the pros and cons of using systemic theories. He argues that Z&P's proposal both goes too far and not far enough. The future of…

Recent policy in England has advocated the introduction of fast-track degrees to provide an alternative, shorter route to a bachelor's degree. It has been argued that this will widen participation in higher education and increase labour market flexibility by providing an option in which undergraduates spend one fewer years out of the labour…