The 2014 "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" describe universal design as an approach that offers promise for improving the fairness of educational assessments. As the field reconsiders questions of fairness in assessments, we propose a new framework that addresses the entire assessment lifecycle: universal design of…

Aspects of noticing which are often overlooked are brought to the surface and illustrated by accounting-for three accounts-of specific phenomena, two of which readers are invited to experience for themselves. These are used as a springboard for both illustrating the Discipline of Noticing as a method of sensitising oneself to notice possibilities…

This paper, delivered as a provocative keynote address to the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) conference in Manchester on 28th October 2023, explores the question if action research might have a sweet spot. A sweet spot is defined as an ideal location, area or combination of factors for a particular activity or purpose. It draws on…

Meeting the needs of students dealing with trauma-related behavioral challenges poses a significant challenge. Research has shown that childhood trauma affects a student's capacity to learn in academic, social, and emotional contexts and that educators are faced with significant challenges when trying to provide an educational path for each of…

Educators are crucial for student success in higher education, yet they often experience high levels of occupational stress which threaten their wellbeing. Informed by a conceptual framework initially developed for addressing worker wellbeing in the healthcare sector, another sector where workers experience high levels of occupational stress, this…

Student development theory has been an important guide in practice; however, few theories focus on both the individual and the influence of the environment. Spencer's (1997) Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) examines the individual, the environment, and the role of environmental feedback on self-perceptions, with a…

In this article, we develop and evaluate a novel system and computing platform to structure, measure, and improve student development using points. We define student development broadly as the achievement of learning to do, know, live together, and be. The system leverages individual agency, social influences, content generation and sharing,…

The Grand Challenges for Social Work were introduced by the American Academy for Social Work & Social Welfare in 2016, which are social problems that are interrelated and "exceedingly complex". We discuss the relevance of complexity theory, operationalized by complex adaptive systems (CAS), to the Grand Challenges. CAS moves beyond…

Understanding complex systems is important in science and has become a prominent aspect of STEM education in recent years. System thinking plays a critical role, focusing on system attributes such as interactions between components, emerging phenomena and hierarchical organisation. In this study, we provide a network analysis of bibliometric…

Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST), an instantiation in applied linguistics of complexity epistemology that transcends disciplinary boundaries, has gained much traction and momentum over the last decade, finding expressions in a fast-growing number of empirical second language developmental studies. However, the literature, while rapidly…

Interlocking systems of oppression are embedded and embodied in the world. Utilizing intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989; 1991) as a framework and perspective to interrogate oppressive systems, intersectional research (IR) has been produced across adult education (AE) journals. IR articles published in AE journals were reviewed using diffractive…

Relying on the social cognitive theory, which postulates that human behaviour is due to social experiences and cognitive interpretation, the current study seeks to investigate the mediating role of collective teacher efficacy (CTE) in the relationship between principals' systems thinking (PST) and school effectiveness in terms of academic emphasis…

The educational technology field is at a critical juncture, facing the dual pressures of rapid technological advancement and a pressing need for research that genuinely addresses educational challenges. Despite increasing awareness of these issues, a significant amount of educational technology research remains entrenched in superficial or…

The research aims to prove the economic conditionality of the process of large-scale introduction of distance education in the context of global digital transformation by the economic interests of private subjects of socio-economic relations. Reaching the terminal stage of the crisis of the liberal socio-economic system leads to the need to…

This study investigates the critical factors influencing students' satisfaction with university-business cooperation (UBC) in postgraduate education, focusing on Chinese universities of applied sciences. Employing a comprehensive research model, we utilised multivariate statistical analysis methods, including canonical correlation analysis,…