This report describes the findings of a doctoral team project regarding core leadership practices that support sustainable academic change. The project team reviewed literature related to sustainable change, reform models, and leadership. The empirical research regarding the relationship between district level leadership practices that contribute…

Many experiential educators assume that participation in outdoor recreation creates an awareness and commitment to the environment through direct experience. This research summary looks to whether the research supports such an assumption. Specifically it reviews the key literature on this topic, examines the various classifications of outdoor…

In 2002, the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) (Luckasson et al., 2002) revised their manual on mental retardation. It also extended the changes that had been made in the previous (1992) manual to further promote an alternative approach to definition and classification in the field. The study reported here sought to determine the…

A word, even when considered monosemic, generally has a cluster of meanings, depending on the mental representation of the referent by the speaker/writer or listener/reader. The variation is even more noticeable across cultures. This paper investigates the different ways in which cultural knowledge helps in the interpretation of English lexical…

Unlike other special education categories defined in U.S. law (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), the definition of specific learning disability (SLD) has not changed since first proposed in 1968. Thus, although the operational definition of SLD has responded to new knowledge and understanding about the construct, the formal definition…

Several scholars have underlined connections between academic mobility and international migration. This qualitative study explores a spectrum of academic mobility articulated by Teichler that empirically contributes to consideration of these connections. This analysis of e-mail excerpts from 20 migrant academics, living in seven countries,…

Many researchers from different disciplines have explained their views and interpretations and written about visual literacy from their various perspectives. Visual literacy may be applied in almost all areas such as advertising, anatomy, art, biology, business presentations, communication, education, engineering, etc. (Pettersson, 2002a). Despite…

Mentoring has emerged as an important element of programs to support the success of first-year students. However, the term mentoring is ambiguous and frequently leads to conceptual confusion, which can limit the quality of support provided to students and confuse those acting as mentors. This article offers a case study of one college's approach…

Policymakers, administrators, and institutional researchers should recognize the critical stakeholders in the area of institutional effectiveness at the community college, their differences in perceptions about institutional effectiveness, and ways to negotiate these differences in perception. This article identifies the different stakeholders in…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore inservice teachers' definitions of project-based learning (PjBL) and their accounts on the meaning of their PjBL implementations. A purposive sample of six teachers from grades four through twelve in public and private schools participated. Three themes evolved from inductive analysis: (1)…

Bullying is considered one of the most prevalent and potentially damaging forms of school violence. Each year, more than a quarter of middle and high school students are subjected to some form of bullying in their school environments. Research has identified potentially harmful immediate and long-term consequences for bullying-involved youth and…

The Commonwealth of Learning Review and Improvement Model (COL RIM) was developed by the Commonwealth of Learning in response to two key drivers: (1) Increased global emphasis on the quality of higher education; and (2) Rising concern about the high cost and uncertain benefits of conventional approaches to external quality assurance. Any…

Researchers and k-12 practitioners have been struggling with inequity and diversity issues for the past four decades. These struggles have produced multiple philosophies, theoretical perspectives and educational approaches--each with strengths and limitations. The various approaches to addressing diversity indirectly and implicitly address, but…

Research has shown that academic misconduct is an issue of concern in most subject areas across both secondary and post-secondary education. However, variation in both investigators' research interests and definitions of the behaviors being investigated leave many unanswered questions regarding the seriousness and nature of the problem, as well as…

National communications systems (NCS) are critical elements of a government's infrastructure. Limited improvements to the non-functional requirements (NFR) of NCS have caused issues during national emergencies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. The literature indicates that these issues result from a deficiency in understanding the roles NFRs and…