Achieving a doctorate presents candidates with certain challenges--undertaking the research, writing the thesis and defending both at their viva. Throughout that doctoral journey, candidates are expected to display doctorateness in their thesis via the characteristics of high-quality scholarly research. The blockages that occur and prevent…

Education is characterised by marked and damaging schisms among its specialties, especially between classroom practitioners and academic members of the profession. While many or most commentators accept this rift as arising from real and significant differences between the groups, this article argues that the schism can be seen as the consequence…

The authors designed an active learning project for a child development course in which students apply core concepts to a hypothetical baby they "raise" during the term. Students applied developmental topics to their unique, developing child. The project fostered student learning and enthusiasm for the material. The project's versatility makes it…

This article examines the potential contradictions of conducting a collaborative self-study research project within a poststructural framework. It is a discussion about the use of theory in self-study research, rather than a report of research findings. The discussion is shaped through (re)consideration of a collaborative self-study doctoral…

This paper presents a macro speech act analysis of computer-mediated conferencing on a university course on language pedagogy. Students read scholarly articles on language learning and discussed them online, in order to make sense of them collaboratively in preparation for a reflective essay. The study explores how the course participants made use…

In this article we present findings from research in 12 UK universities that sought to capture a range of perspectives on "distributed leadership" and reveal common and competing experiences within and between institutions. From analysis of findings we identified two principle approaches to the distribution of leadership:…

The Scottish Qualification for Headship (SQH) was established in 1998 and is organised and delivered by two (previously three) consortia comprising a partnership model with universities and local authorities. SQH participants are encouraged to adopt a distributed style of leadership in taking forward their School Improvement Project. Currently,…

A formative computer-based assessment (CBA) was one of three instruments used for assessment in a Bachelor of Education course at Queen's University (Ontario, Canada) with an enrolment of approximately 700 students. The formative framework fostered a self-regulated learning environment whereby feedback on the CBA was used to support rather than…

This paper focuses on the socially constructed ideas that have come to be given the status of taken-for-granted knowledge within not one, but two, fields of professional practice in Northern Irish schools; community relations and special needs education. Dominant discourses were viewed as constructing norms around which educational professionals…

This article describes the author's cross-pedagogical approach to co-teaching with student affairs colleagues. The central goal of this approach is to help students create meaning for their lives. The author also gives an account of an incident that occurred in one seminar and illustrates the benefits of a crossover approach.

The federal mandate for use of evidence-based practice in schools focuses attention on the frequently discussed research-to-practice gap in education. The current study examined the frequency with which evidence-based practices are engaged in the education of pupils with disabilities. In sum, 174 special education teachers and 333 school…

Objective: The goal of this study is to advance an approach to the assessment of the quality of studies considered for inclusion in systematic reviews of the effects of social-care interventions. Method: To achieve this objective, quality is defined in relation to the widely accepted validity typology; prominent approaches to study quality…

This paper presents and analyses data gathered from a survey of teachers in a range of secondary school English departments. It seeks to establish the ways in which teachers perceive their subject knowledge Continuing Professional Development (CPD) needs and the ways in which they would like to engage with Higher Education (HE) English as part of…

This paper collates some of the systematic ways that different cultural groups refer to space. In some cases, space is more strongly identified in terms of place than in school Indo-European mathematics approaches. The affinity to place does not reduce the efficient, abstract, mathematical system behind the reference but it does strengthen its…

John Dewey (1859-1952) was a major figure of the American cultural and intellectual landscape in the first half of the twentieth century. While not the originator of American pragmatism, he was instrumental to its articulation as a philosophy and the spread of its influence beyond philosophy to other disciplines. His prolific writings encompass…