The recent hype and ascendancy in the discourse of community capacity-building has generated a lot of heated debate among development and policy experts on its applicability in various contexts. In particular, questions have been raised on the presuppositions inherent in the discourse and, more so, the tension that exists between theory and…

Critics of education research in the recent years have pointed the finger at what they saw as its low quality, impact, and "value for money." In the context of the Research Assessment Exercise, particular concerns have been raised about applied and practice-based educational research and how best to assess its quality. This contribution…

Comments on the report by the APA Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice (see record 2006-05893-001) entitled Evidence-based practice in psychology. Regrettably, the task force report was largely silent on three critical issues. As a consequence, it omitted much of the evidence necessary for a complete picture of evidence-based…

This activity is designed to help build a bridge between the practical and the theoretical and lay the groundwork for students to assess and evaluate both communication theory and popular press titles. This activity is very effective in demonstrating that communication theory can be practical and applicable to real-life advice about work, home,…

The belief that randomized controlled trials provide a "gold standard" for evaluating therapeutic interventions is challenged. The need for research designs that produce valid and reliable information about interventions, which is clinically/educationally relevant and personally important, is discussed together with possibilities for broadening…

This study reinvestigates the systems approach, which is, among educators, a well-recognized approach reflecting the fundamental discourses of the industrial order. The pervasive discourses of the industrial order that failed to invite a holistic view for students have led to a conceptual division. This systemic thinking has thus started viewing…

This article concerns the introduction of evidence-based practice (EBP) in foundation research. Five suggestions are discussed: (a) EBP relative to other epistemologies, (b) EBP in the context of the history of science, (c) research designs and levels of EBP, (d) EBP and measurement, and (e) systematic reviews as a review topic of the content of…

In this example from the human services field, project-based learning is used to connect theoretical knowledge and practice skills by taking a project from industry and completing it within the peer supported learning environment of the classroom, returning the project product to industry. The theoretical ideal of participation was the project's…

In theory, the charter school concept is based on a trade-off or exchange: greater autonomy for increased accountability. Although charter schools have been operating for more than 10 years, little is known about charter school autonomy in practice. This mixed-methods study used survey and case study data to examine the degree of autonomy of…

Improving the quality of life of the people of Russia--a paramount national priority--requires optimizing scientific activity and substantially increasing its technological success rate and social effectiveness, and reforming the administrative structure, in short, the fundamentalization of present-day science. The connection between fundamental…

This work is based on the assumption that if the classroom is a space in which manifestations of critical autonomous thinking appear systematically, then it promotes that same kind of thinking by the students, in other contexts. But what count as manifestations of critical autonomous thinking, and how can we observe them? As Robert Young's…

This article has two purposes. First, it integrates the underlying principles of developmental systems theory (Ford & Lerner, 1992; Lerner, 2002, 2004) with the most recent research on immigrant youth. Second, based on an analysis of both theory and research, it offers implications for school counseling professionals' work with immigrant youth…

This paper documents a self-study research group's development and its effects on 11 participants. Drawing on the scholarship of the self-study tradition within educational research, we see teacher knowledge as an important and largely untapped source for the improvement of teaching. Positioning participants to look at the sense and selves being…

The question of how the realms of research and practice might successfully relate to one another is a persisting one, and especially so in education. The article takes a fresh look at this issue by using the terminology of collaboration scripts to reflect upon various forms of this relationship. Under this perspective, several approaches towards…

Academic Freedom is a sacrosanct value on American university campuses. Virtually all research institutions, public and private, have explicitly adopted some form of the American Association of University Professors' 1940 "Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure" or the organization's the 1915 "Declaration of…