This paper reports on an exploratory study that investigated the effect of extensive speaking practice on the development of L2 speaking complexity, accuracy, and fluency in voice blogging. The participants were 30 college EFL (English as a foreign language) learners in Taiwan. As a supplement to the insufficient speaking practice in class, each…

Understanding the relationship between social presence and critical thinking is useful for gaining insight into the interaction and discourse of learners online. Further study of how these two presences interact is important because research has shown a wide variety of relationships, both positive and negative, between social presence and critical…

This study explored student responses to a Student Inclusiveness Survey (SIS), with specific attention to nontraditional student responses about collegiate inclusion. Specifically, the SIS constructs that related to inclusion, the Perceptions of Inclusiveness and Institutional Safeguarding of Inclusiveness, were analyzed descriptively, and…

The value of sport as a vehicle for social development and progressive social change has been much debated, yet what tends to get missed in this debate is the way education may foster, enable or impede the transformative action that underpins the social outcomes to which the "sport for development and peace" (SDP) sector aspires. This…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate linguistic and cultural issues around the status of English as a lingua franca and intercultural understanding as presented in one set of Taiwan's (English as a Foreign Language (EFL) high school textbooks. The methodology centres on the analysis of textbook content as categorized in three central themes:…

This article describes the social networks of four young people with intellectual disabilities in supported adult education, focusing on their inclusion in school and leisure environments. A multiple case study approach with content analysis was used. Data were collected through interviews with young people and their family members, relationship…

Literature can be a powerful resource for adolescents' psychosocial development, as it provides opportunities to experience the world through the perspectives of others and juxtapose these with one's own experiences. However, gaining access to these perspectives requires going beyond literal words on the page to explore interpretive meanings. This…

This article examines the historical development of the state's actions in educational assessment in Chile from the nineteenth century to the present day, based on the analysis of governmental decrees and regulations related to assessment, and their variability over time. The research identifies six distinctive periods, each of which expresses a…

The study detailed in this paper examines the growing role of non-state actors in the transnational policy-making landscape through a case study of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)--a partnership of donor and developing country governments, multilateral organizations, civil society, private companies and foundations, dedicated to…

Online courses play an increasing role in professional development of environmental educators, yet little information is available on the interactive processes involved in online learning. We examined the relationship of three types of interactions in an urban environmental education online course--participant-participant, participant-instructor,…

That rural schools suffer from issues of "hard to staff" and "harder to stay" has been well documented in extant literature. However, the literature seems to indicate inadequate teacher preparation for work in rural schools. Literature also demonstrates that teaching in rural settings ostensibly requires relevant knowledge and,…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether (a) family members were able to learn to write a social story and deliver social story intervention to teach social skills to their children (age 12 to 16) with ASD, (b) youths with ASD acquired and maintained the targeted social skills and generalized these skills across novel situations. Multiple…

The creators and supporters of the Common Core State Standards claim that the Standards require greater emphasis on higher-order thinking than previous state standards in mathematics and English language arts. We used a qualitative case study design with content analysis methods to test the claim. We compared the levels of thinking required by the…

The article examines essential characteristics and specific features, role of elective disciplines in the formation of professional competence of students as future teachers. Important and promising characteristics of the content of professional competence of students as future teachers have been studied and theoretically justified. We have…

Open-ended (OE) items are widely used to gather data on student performance in international achievement studies. However, several factors may threaten validity when using such items. This study examined Finnish coders' opinions about threats to validity when coding responses to OE items in the PISA 2012 problem-solving test. A total of 6…