Music therapists have been working in special education contexts for many decades, utilising research and case studies to inform practice. Growing interest in the link between the creative arts and well-being has led music therapists to consider what aspects of their knowledge others could feasibly appropriate in the school system. An action…

UK National Autism Strategy (Department of Health, 2010 and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance (NICE, 2012) states that frontline staff should have a good understanding of Autism. Fifty-six clinical and administrative staff from a multidisciplinary community Learning Disability service completed an electronic questionnaire…

Little research directly examines the needs of post-secondary students with ASD. The experiences and support needs of 23 students with ASD enrolled in two universities and four colleges, and 15 family members were explored in 15 semi-structured focus groups. Thematic analysis identified five themes: core ASD features, co-morbid conditions,…

In spite of various actions, the implementation of GIS (geographic information systems) in German schools is still very low. In the presented research, teaching experts as well as teaching novices were presented with empirically based constraints for implementation stemming from an earlier survey. In the process of various group discussions, the…

This paper explores the alignment of assessment practices in universities and lifelong learning as a key process and outcome for expansive student development. It outlines Boud's approach to assessment, operationalises this to analyse practices in two contrasting national contexts: the sociology departments of the Midlands University in the UK and…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate participants' experiences of and satisfaction with the content and outcome of 13 different sessions of a 4-day diabetes education programme and to compare participants' experiences with the extent of educator talk in the sessions. A 10-second event coding was used to evaluate educators'…

Purpose: There is little known about whether faculty and students in a resource constricted context experience a change in learning due to the adoption of blended learning (BL) pedagogies in a lab based course. The study aimed to understand the experiences of faculty and students' related to the adoption of BL pedagogies in health assessment…

This research starts by analysing the current state of artistic heritage in Italy and studying some examples in Europe: we try to investigate the scope of non-formal learning in artistic context, mediated by advanced technology. The framework within which we have placed our investigation is that of lifelong learning and lifedeep learning. The…

Career development research has often explored gender differences in and development of career patterns. Women were traditionally sidelined from performing from full participation in society and have struggled for their civil rights and social freedoms by challenging the male-dominated social systems. In an age when women are now gaining strong…

The use of online social networking sites for educational purposes or expanding curricular opportunities has recently sparked debates in scholarly forums. This potential, however, has yet to attract sufficient attention in second language classes, and particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. The current study explores the…

At an age identified as the period with the most intense focus on appearance, and where young girls are establishing their identity, it appears that social networking site (SNS) interactions are playing a pivotal role in determining what is, and what is not, socially endorsed. This paper draws on data obtained during five separate focus group…

Background and aim: Even though the beneficial effects of elderly learning are widely acknowledged, many older Chinese people are still not involved. This paper aims to examine the barriers that affect the level of educational participation of older adults in China. Methodology: Using a focus group methodology, 43 older participants (aged 55 years…

Collaborative learning (CL), a core component of inquiry-based learning approaches, aims to support students' development of key skills (e.g., working in multidisciplinary teams). To design effective CL activities, we need to understand students' perceptions about CL. However, few studies have examined students' understandings of CL. This…

This article reports on recent case-study research that examined teacher- and student-level processes in nine Australian arts classrooms. The selected classrooms, based on the results of a connected longitudinal study, demonstrated strong positive links between arts participation and academic motivation, engagement and achievement. The focus here…

"School connectedness" is one of a number of terms used to describe a young person's relationship to school. With school being a compulsory feature of most young people's lives, the nature of this relationship can be highly influential in terms of the quality of their overall school experience. Young people experiencing low connectedness…