Background/Context: The evolution of validity understandings from mid-century to now has emphasized that test validity depends on test purpose--adding consequence considerations to issues of interpretation and evidentiary warrants. Purpose: To consider the tensions created by multiple purposes for assessment and sketch briefly how we got to where…

Despite the "practice" turn in the broader management literature, very little work in educational administration has engaged in a theoretical discussion about what constitutes leadership practice. Theoretically informed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper contributes to the long-established critical tradition in the educational…

A science-based practice should be caring, there is no dissent about this. But why a social work science? Until now "things are fine," and practice seems to be getting on very well without it!? It is claimed that there is no alternative in its own interest. Social work needs social work science because of the epistemological issues linked to the…

Single-case design (SCD) research focuses on finding powerful effects, but the influence of this methodology on the evidence-based practice (EBP) movement is questionable. Meta-analytic procedures may help facilitate the role of SCD research in the EBP movement, but meta-analyses of SCDs are controversial. The current article provides an…

Background: Testing evidence-based interventions (EBIs) outside of their home country has become increasingly commonplace. There is a need for theoretically guided research on how to best create and test the effects of culturally adapted interventions. Objective: To illustrate how the field might raise the scientific and practical value of future…

This article provides a material enactment of educational theory to explore how we might do educational theory differently by defamiliarising the familiar. Theory is often assumed to be abstract, located solely in the realm of ideas and separate from practice. However, this view of theory emerges from a set of ontological and epistemological…

The importance of putting theory into practice can be addressed and advocated to educators and gifted students through the presentation of a Continuum of Practice. Articulating the sequence and phases of practice can underscore how practice can take place; it also can change the perspective and meaning of practice.

This paper reports on the first year of an innovative Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Advanced Education Practice, designed to meet the specific staff and development needs of one school in the North West of England. The programme is underpinned by three strands of practice based learning: learning about practice (theory), learning in…

The current study investigated the content of future perceptions among 47 U.S. women and 48 Israeli women. Thematic analysis was used to explore participants' qualitative responses. Women's responses covered a wide range of topics, and were categorized into ten key themes: (a) work, (b) family/relationships, (c) property, (d) residence, (e)…

The early childhood workforce is routinely demonstrated as being central to the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC). Frequently, discussions of quality focus on structural features of training, such as level and duration. However, the literature demonstrates that quality extends beyond the structural and that early childhood…

This paper describes the research conducted in the Republic of Croatia during the 2012/13 academic year. We have gathered opinions from experts, i.e. teaching methods teachers from seven faculties of teacher education, regarding the music teaching competencies necessary for primary education teachers teaching music in the first several grades of…

The article describes how a group of student teachers understood and enacted inclusion in noninclusive school placements during a year-long teaching residency. It examines, within de Certeau's framework of tactics and strategies, how students made meaning of their placements, their understanding of university practice in relation to inclusion, and…

This article examines evidence regarding the assessment learning of preservice teachers (PTs) in a new Master of Teaching designed to prepare teachers to address the less than equitable outcomes of certain groups of students in New Zealand. The assessment curriculum was integrated across all of the courses and the in-school experiences as one of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a culturally responsive professional development intervention for teachers and school leaders in a K-5 school setting. This qualitative case study involved a five-month long professional development intervention called the Culturally Responsive Professional Development (CRPD) series, largely…

In this study, a university professor and school district literacy coordinator co-designed and co-taught a literacy methods course where teacher candidates participated in dynamic learning in classrooms, exploring how theory can meet practice when students' funds of knowledge are valued through responsive teaching. Case study methodology was taken…