Significant signs: a case study of citation practices in educational research

Citations have a central role in the dynamic process of knowledge development and as measures of research performance – yet little is known about their role in educational research or the qualities they are assumed to measure. Based on a citation context analysis, this study shows how a paradigmatic reference within classroom research has been used in 90 articles in educational research journals. Four types of content and four citation functions were identified in the immediate context of the citation symbols. Surprisingly, no critical citations or discussions of the validity of the cited study were found. The results are discussed in relation to the conditions for communication within a field without disciplinary cohesion.     

课例研究:如何从教育模式走向教育实践

课例研究作为一种教师专业化发展模式已经引起教育研究者和教育者的广泛关注.作为从日本移植的一种教育模式,如何充分理解与改进课例研究,发挥其对改进课堂教学的潜在意义,是一个在理论与实践方面都有重要意义的问题.课例研究作为一种教育研究方法在进一步发展中应进行的三类研究:发展有关课例研究的核心特征的理论;阐明课例研究的机制;课例研究的方法论和证明路线.     

The leeway of qualitative educational research: A case study

This article presents a case study into the question of how research-internal and research-external factors influence the leeway of qualitative research, and ultimately determine which questions can and cannot be addressed in research. First an overview is presented of the position of qualiative research in the field of education in The Netherlands. This position is then analysed by situating educational research in the particular research political context. In the second part of the article the authors focus on effective schools research, one of the strongest research programmes in Dutch educational studies, in order to show the consequences of the lack of a qualitative tradition.     

Jekyll and hyde in the classroom: A comparative case study in educational failure

This article describes the curriculum Enrichment Program (CEP), an attempt at partial privatization in a Jerusalem elementary school. Although the school was part of the free public education system, under the CEP parents could pay for their children to receive extra teaching over and above the basic curriculum. Because of a high drop-out rate and other problems, the project was terminated after a short period. The author examines the reasons for the failure of the scheme and analyses its wider implications.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel beschreibt das Curriculum Enrichment Program (CEP — Curriculum Erweiterungsprojekt), ein Versuch zur teilweisen Privatisierung einer Grundschule in Jerusalem. Obwohl die Schule Teil eines freien öffentlichen Bildungssystems war, stand es den Eltern frei, gegen Bezahlung erweiterten Unterricht über das Grundcurriculum hinaus für ihre Kinder zu erhalten. Das Projekt wurde schon nach kurzer Zeit aufgrund von hohen Schulversagerquoten und anderen Problemen beendet. Der Autor untersucht die Gründe für den Fehlschlag des Systems und analysiert die weiteren Auswirkungen.

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Resumen Este artículo describe un proyecto de ampliación del programa de enseñanza Llamado Curriculum Enrichment Program (CEP) como un proyecto de privatización parcial que se realizó en una escuela de primera enseñanza de Jerusalén. Si bien la escuela formaba parte del sistema de educación pública, el CEP ofrecía la posibilidad de que los padres pagaran una instrucción adicional al programa básico para sus hijos. A causa de una elevada cuota de bajas y de otros problemas, el proyecto fue terminado poco tiempo después. El autor examina las razones del fracaso de este delineamiento y analiza las consecuencias de mayor trascendencia.

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Résumé Cet article décrit le projet d'enrichissement des curriculums, qui était une tentative de privatisation partielle dans une école primaire de Jérusalem. Bien que cette école fasse partie du système d'enseignement public, ce projet donnait l'option aux parents de payer pour que leurs enfants reçoivent un enseignement supplémentaire, en dehors du curriculum de base ou supérieur à celui-ci. En raison du taux élevé d'abandons et d'autres problèmes, le projet fut interrompu après une courte période. L'auteur étudie les raisons de l'échec de ce modèle et en analyse les répercussions indirectes.

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略论马宗荣的社会教育思想及实践

马宗荣是我国近代著名的社会教育学家。他一生从事社会教育的实践和学术研究,对社会教育学有着独特而深刻的见解。马宗荣的社会教育思想对近代中国的社会教育理论界的影响作用是不可低估的。     

E-learning services acceptance in higher educational institutes: A case study in Brunei

This research studies on the e-learning services acceptance in higher education institutions in Brunei Darussalam. This research has seven hypotheses, relating to independent, intermediary, and dependent variables. The independent variables include lecturer’s characteristics, design of learning contents, teaching materials, and playfulness; while the intermediary variables are perceived benefits and perceived ease of use. On the other hand, the dependent variable in this research is the intention to use e-learning. Multiple regression analysis were conducted to test the hypotheses proposed. Data analysis from this research has confirmed that the lecturer’s characteristics, teaching materials, perceived ease of use and the intention to use e-learning corresponds to the perceived benefits. Meanwhile, the design of learning content and the intention to use e-learning are positively related to the perceived ease of use and lastly, the variable playfulness is positively related to the intention to use e-learning.     

Factors affecting teachers' adoption of educational computer games: A case study

Even though computer games hold considerable potential for engaging and facilitating learning among today's children, the adoption of modern educational computer games is still meeting significant resistance in K‐12 education. The purpose of this paper is to inform educators and instructional designers on factors affecting teachers' adoption of modern educational computer games. A case study was conducted to identify the factors affecting the adoption of Dimenxian, which was a new educational computer game designed to teach Algebra to middle school students. The diffusion of innovations theory was used as the conceptual framework of this study. The results indicated that compatibility, relative advantage, complexity and trialability played important roles in the game adoption. These findings were compared with the existing literature on (1) the adoption of educational software, and (2) the barriers in the use of educational computer games in K‐12 settings to help guide future research and practice. The comparison showed that (1) adoption attributes for the games and other educational software had a similar pattern from high to low significance: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability; and (2) the game adoption factors were more inclusive than the barriers of using the computer games.     

Inclusive and democratic practices in primary school classrooms: A multiple case study in Spain

ABSTRACT

Background: In order to offer all students the opportunity to progress and grow to their full potential, teachers must positively recognise and value the different expressions of diversity of all the class members. One of the biggest educational challenges that teachers face today is how to address classroom practices from a truly inclusive and democratic perspective.

Purpose: The main aim of this study was to explore, in a Spanish context, how primary school teachers articulate and implement inclusive and democratic practices in their classrooms.

Design, sample and methods: The methodological design of this study was situated within a qualitative research approach. A multiple case study structure, comprising three case studies, was utilised. Data collection was carried out via interviews, classroom practices inventories, scientific observation and analysis of documentation. The study was carried out over three academic years and had three phases. Data were analysed thematically.

Findings: In the three cases analysed, the analysis identified different possibilities in terms of the implementation and articulation of pedagogical differentiation (the structures, content, process and product) and democratic classroom management (collaborative culture, a shared leadership, democratic participation and school linked to environs).

Conclusions: The analysis highlights the need to support the formation of a critical citizenship within inclusive contexts, as well as the need to develop a sense of belonging to the educational community.     

Teachers' biographies and educational development: a Kenyan case study

Over the last decade there has been a growing interest among academics in the lives and work of teachers in industrialised countries. Many of these studies have sought to understand how teachers perceive their work and how they develop their particular professional identities. There is a growing recognition of the impact of teachers' own biographies on their training and on curriculum development and implementation. This paper examines the perspectives of a group of Kenyan educators, advisors and inspectors, from different regions, who have taken part in a national project designed to strengthen primary education through the in-service training of teachers. The aim is to examine the potential of biographical research to provide new insights into the processes of educational development. The participants in the research reflect on their own career development and life histories; on their identities, both professional and personal; and on the impact of these on their work. Drawing on an issue which divided the group, that of gender equality, the paper considers some of the biographical and cultural factors which permit and restrict development.     

Research trends in educational technology journals between 2000 and 2018: a web scraping study

Education and Information Technologies - Previous screening studies conducted in leading educational technology journals have primarily been content analyses or systematic reviews; however, this...     

Population validity for educational data mining models: A case study in affect detection

Information and communication technology (ICT)‐enhanced research methods such as educational data mining (EDM) have allowed researchers to effectively model a broad range of constructs pertaining to the student, moving from traditional assessments of knowledge to assessment of engagement, meta‐cognition, strategy and affect. The automated detection of these constructs allows EDM researchers to develop intervention strategies that can be implemented either by the software or the teacher. It also allows for secondary analyses of the construct, where the detectors are applied to a data set that is much larger than one that could be analyzed by more traditional methods. However, in many cases, the data used to develop EDM models are collected from students who may not be representative of the broader populations who are likely to use ICT. In order to use EDM models (automated detectors) with new populations, their generalizability must be verified. In this study, we examine whether detectors of affect remain valid when applied to new populations. Models of four educationally relevant affective states were constructed based on data from urban, suburban and rural students using ASSISTments software for middle school mathematics in the Northeastern United States. We found that affect detectors trained on a population drawn primarily from one demographic grouping do not generalize to populations drawn primarily from the other demographic groupings, even though those populations might be considered part of the same national or regional culture. Models constructed using data from all three subpopulations are more applicable to students in those populations than those trained on a single group, but still do not achieve ideal population validity—the ability to generalize across all subgroups. In particular, models generalize better across urban and suburban students than rural students. These findings have important implications for data collection efforts, validation techniques, and the design of interventions that are intended to be applied at scale.     

Google glass adoption in the educational environment: A case study in the Gulf area

Education and Information Technologies - The rapid changes in recent years witnessed the development of technology-based education environment where teachers and learners can interact by adopting...     

Teacher hiring practices and educational efficiency

This paper analyses the relationship between teacher hiring practices and educational efficiency in Norwegian school districts. The hiring decision is made at the school level by the principal or at the school district level. According to the data, efficiency is the highest in districts where hiring is decentralized. Hiring practices are decided by the school district, and linear estimates of the effect of decentralized hiring on efficiency may be biased because of non-random selection. First, I approach this problem by including a large set of controls in a school district level analysis, which does not alter the qualitative result. Second, I perform a school level analysis with district fixed effects. The results indicate, as expected, that the effect of decentralization is stronger for schools facing excess teacher supply than for schools without excess supply.