This chapter is based on heuristic research and phenomenology which honors the dialectic of personal narratives as a way to process and understand the politics of change centered on hegemony, discourse, and cultural plurality. This methodology utilizes personal narrative and dialog as way to consider the importance of reflecting on individual…

Paralleling the accelerating pace of educational change in the last two decades has been the development of a professional learning community (PLC) in schools. Characterised by teacher collaboration and a spirit of enquiry, the PLC represents a response to change and an opportunity to benefit teachers, students and schools, using an approach most…

This study investigated the possible connection between effective laboratory activities and student performance on lecture exams. In a traditional undergraduate organic chemistry course for non-science majors, students could predict the products of organic reactions, but struggled to provide reaction mechanisms for those same reactions, despite…

To test whether epistemically unproblematic ways of thinking and talking about science could be transformed during preservice teacher training, we designed a system of learning activities based on a set of "heuristics for progressive disciplinary discourse" (HPDD). The HPDD outline six design principles of learning environments where the aim is to…

The purpose of this study is to explore how Lakatos' scientific research programmes might serve as a theoretical framework for representing and evaluating informal argumentation about socio-scientific issues. Seventy undergraduate science and non-science majors were asked to make written arguments about four socio-scientific issues. Our analysis…

Background: Two major conceptions of learning exist: reproducing new material and transforming material to make meaning. Teachers' understandings of what learning is probably influence their teaching practices and student academic performance. Aims: To validate a short scale derived from Tait, Entwistle, & McCune's (1998) ASSIST inventory and…

This highly readable text demystifies the qualitative research process--and helps readers conceptualize their own studies--by organizing the different research paradigms and traditions into coherent clusters. Real-world examples and firsthand perspectives illustrate the research process; instructive exercises and activities build on each other so…

The purpose of this qualitative, heuristic inquiry was two-fold: First, the study explored the lived experiences of four teacher leaders working in one comprehensive high school in a district where the researcher is superintendent. The second purpose was to learn from the experiences of the teacher leaders to inform district level actions that…

Many researchers and teacher educators propose that reflection is an important way teachers can think about changing their views and practices. The hierarchical constructs used to describe reflection, however, are often interpreted in ways that promote reflection as a "tool" teachers use to elevate their views and practices toward ideal "end…

The "Approaches to Studying Inventory" (ASI) was based on qualitative research by Marton and Saljo, which established "surface" and "deep" approaches to study. This article attempts a new qualitative explication of the meanings of study. A heuristic due to Husserl is employed which distinguishes between the "noema", the "subjective object" of…

Cognitive processes are often attributed to statistical or symbolic general-purpose mechanisms. Here we show that some spontaneous generalizations are driven by specialized, highly constrained symbolic operations. We explore how two types of artificial grammars are acquired, one based on repetitions and the other on characteristic relations…

This paper suggests that multivariate analysis techniques are very important in educational research, and that one multivariate technique--canonical correlation analysis--may be particularly useful. The logic of canonical analysis is explained. It is suggested that a backward variable elimination strategy can make the method even more powerful, by…

All parametric methods are special cases of canonical correlation analysis and can, in fact, be performed using the canonical correlation procedures found in commonly available computer statistics packages such as the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) software. It is suggested that canonical analysis has advantages of versatility since it can…

This paper discusses some of the basic distinctions between the activities of inquiry and application and reviews the origins of the inquiry-application dichotomy. The parallel dependence model, designed to serve as a heuristic device, stresses the complementary potential of the inquiry and application functions. (LMO)

Prior to conducting a statistical analysis, sufficient data screening methods should be used for all research variables to identify miscoded, missing, or otherwise messy data. The primary purpose of these exercises was to demonstrate the role of data screening techniques and their potential to improve the performance of statistical methods. A…