Single-subject designs and action research in the K-12 setting

Inasmuch as educational research is concerned with individual student assessment and development, it is surprising that single-subject designs are not more readily utilized in classroom-based action research. The purpose of this article is to emphasize benefits of single-subject research in the K-12 setting, given that teachers teach and assess individual students, the availability of individual student data, the uniqueness of all students' needs, and the ease with which data can be summarized and analyzed. A basic framework for conducting single-subject research is provided with the use of examples and discussion.     

The underutilized potential of teacher-to-parent communication: Evidence from a field experiment

Parental involvement is correlated with student performance, though the causal relationship is less well established. This experiment examined an intervention that delivered weekly one-sentence individualized messages from teachers to the parents of high school students in a credit recovery program. Messages decreased the percentage of students who failed to earn course credit from 15.8% to 9.3%—a 41% reduction. This reduction resulted primarily from preventing drop-outs, rather than from reducing failure or dismissal rates. The intervention shaped the content of parent–child conversations with messages emphasizing what students could improve, versus what students were doing well, producing the largest effects. We estimate the cost of this intervention per additional student credit earned to be less than one-tenth the typical cost per credit earned for the district. These findings underscore the value of educational policies that encourage and facilitate teacher-to-parent communication to empower parental involvement in their children's education.     

Posthumanism as research methodology: inquiry in the Anthropocene

The posthuman turn has radically–and rapidly–shifted what is possible in research methodology. In response, my aim in this conceptual paper is to suggest entry points into posthuman educational research methodology. I outline aspects of posthumanism while recognizing its multiplicity: there are many posthumanisms and each offers different twists, turns, and ways of thinking about methodology. In unfolding the potentials thereof, I locate posthumanism within our current epoch, which some scholars have suggested be renamed the Anthropocene to account for the impact of humanity on the planet. Then, I describe how posthumanism situates, processes, and affirms knowledge in interconnected and material contexts. Next, I consider how non-representational research imagines and animates methodologies that think differently. I conclude by discussing a postdisciplinary future for more-than-critical inquiries. Significantly, this article addresses recent advancements in posthuman research and engages with ongoing theoretical, methodological, and ethical debates.     

跨国教育:一个不容忽视的新课题

在WTO框架和经济全球化的背景下,跨国教育已在一些国家和地区出现,并在近几年获得了较大发展。这一趋势将对我国产生重要影响,成为我国高等教育理论和实践中一个不容忽视的新课题。跨国教育具有正负两方面的影响,我们应抓住机遇,趋利避害,把我国的跨国教育做大做强。     

Engagement with research: acknowledging uncertainty in methodology

Method creates relationships in research. It positions everyone and everything in the research process. When method is based on a misrepresentation of science, the relationships formed are technical, closed and self-referential. Using a Deleuze–Guattari framework we are concerned that scientific method in qualitative research solidifies, crystallizes and archaeologizes the research. This paper questions what is being ruled out and deemed as unimportant, or indeed contaminating and fallacious in such research. We argue for the acknowledgement of uncertainty as this allows for more engagement with the research and researched. Deleuze and Guattari argue for multiplicity, connectivity and becoming. This paper calls for acknowledging and mentoring uncertainty at every stage of the teaching and learning of method.     

Undergraduate geoscience education research: Evolution of an emerging field of discipline-based education research

Discipline-based education research (DBER) conducted by faculty within geoscience departments can address identified needs in undergraduate geoscience education. This study explores the evolution of undergraduate geoscience education research (GER) from 1985 to 2016, primarily in terms of the types of published research and secondarily in terms of the insights this literature offers on the evolution of GER as a scholarly discipline. Stokes’ (1997) quadrant model of research types is used as a theoretical framework for the former and Kuhn's (1970) model of disciplinary paradigm for the latter. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to a systematic literature review of 1,760 articles is utilized. The period 1985–2000 is characterized by proto-research as evidenced by the abundance of instructive and informational education articles rather than research articles. From 2000 to 2011, GER underwent a growth period characterized by the presence of applied, use-inspired, and pure basic research. The period 2011–2016 appears to be a period of relative steady-state conditions in the normalized number of GER publications per year. Existing gaps in knowledge about geoscience education, the evident unfamiliarity with education and social science research methodologies among authors of GER articles, and efforts to build consensus about what GER is and how to conduct it suggest that GER is preparadigmatic or at a low paradigm state. That is, GER is an immature discipline as far as the evolution of a discipline goes. A path forward is proposed for the continued evolutionary growth of GER. This study provides new perspectives on the emergence of GER as a discipline that can be used as a basis for studies on cross-disciplinary DBER comparisons.     

AIDA: a methodology independent support tool for educational software authoring

Many authoring tools have been proposed in an attempt to find more effective ways to face the challenge of developing educational software. However, most of them are reported to be restrictive, since they are strongly connected to a specific educational software development methodology. The AIDA (Ambiente Integrado para o Desenvolvimento de Aplicações educacionais) authoring environment was developed at the University of Coimbra having as its main objectives the support of most of the activities involved in authoring and making educational software development easier. The AIDA system is based on a design module, i.e. a prototyping tool allowing the creation of Windows-based software, including multimedia features. The system assists evaluation activities and it caters also for support on translation and cultural adaptation, as well as on the reutilization of educational materials. The use of the AIDA environment is illustrated by three small examples using different development methodologies.     

Rhyme and reading: a critical review of the research methodology

There is debate over whether children’s early rhyme awareness has important implications for beginning reading instruction. The apparent finding that pre‐readers are able to perform rhyme tasks much more readily than phoneme tasks has led some to propose that teaching children to read by drawing attention to rime units within words is ‘a route into phonemes’ (Goswami, 1999a, p. 233). Rhyme and analogy have been adopted as an integral part of the National Literacy Strategy (DfEE, 1998), a move which appears to have been influenced by three major research claims:1) rhyme awareness is related to reading ability, 2) rhyme awareness affects reading achievement, and 3) rhyme awareness leads to the development of phoneme awareness. A critical examination of the experimental research evidence from a methodological viewpoint, however, shows that not one of the three claims is sufficiently supported. Instructional implications are discussed.     

院校研究:理论、方法与机制

院校研究是针对学校规划、政策发展和管理决策需要,基于本校情境收集、分析和报告事实性数据及信息的自我反思型应用研究。美国的院校研究活动主要集中在收集高校运行的事实性数据、管理问题诊断、专题性决策参谋研究、战略管理与规划研究四个方面。院校研究的有效开展需要掌握高等教育学科理论知识、所研究高校学科发展规律,遵守院校研究的伦理规范、加强沟通与交流。当前推进中国大陆院校研究的动力机制主要在于决策需求与参谋信息的双向互动。     

Action research as a methodology for professional development in leading an educational process

The need to resolve a researcher’s discomfort, resulting from the inherent gap between values and beliefs and their practical implementation, led to using action research methodology during an academy-field partnership. Two teacher educators, 24 pre-service teachers specializing in science, and six teachers participated in the study. Throughout the two years of the partnership this study describes a reflective perspective process that focuses on actions, events, thoughts, dilemmas and feelings of the participants that emerged from the researcher's reflective journal. Cycles of reflection on thinking and doing helped monitoring the complex process of the partnership that bridges the gap between the academic and field cultures. The collected data underwent three stages of interpretative content analysis that point to the role of reflection cycles on thinking and doing, resulting in the interweaving of cognitive, affective, theoretical and practical features during the academy-field practice model.     

Levels of reflection in action research. An overview and an assessment tool

This is a preliminary study that examines prospective teachers’ reflective thinking as it is exhibited in their action research during the teaching practice experience. Different systems of analyzing reflective thinking are reviewed and criticized for their suitability for analyzing written journals rather than other forms of expressing and developing reflection. An inventory for analyzing student teachers’ reflective thinking during action research is constructed and validated (IRTAR). It is then used for analyzing action research reports of hundred prospective teachers. The results of the analysis are discussed within the context of teacher education programs in Egypt.     

Interactive group activity: a socially mediated tool for opening an interpretive space in classroom research

An ongoing challenge in classroom research is to understand children’s perspectives on their learning. While learning is highly individual, it is also significantly social and this raises methodological challenges. An Interactive Group Activity (IGA) is one of several data collection strategies used during the action research phase of the Connecting Curriculum, Connecting Learning project (2010–2011) focusing on arts-based curriculum integration. This article concentrates on the IGA tool as a means of uncovering children’s meaning making following an extended period of learning. Of particular note is the use of an arts pedagogical device to introduce the IGA to children, a device that frames the purpose of the task. In effect, the IGA acts as a group assessment device underlining the socially mediated nature of children’s learning. This article describes how the IGA tool evolved, gives its form and structure, argues for its affordances and suggests possibilities for its wider use.     

新方法抑或新教育史学——对教育史研究发展方向的一点看法

教育史学界近年来对研究方向及学科发展总体方向争论颇多。为着眼未来发展,发挥教育史学在长时段历史事件与社会变迁方面的势,教育史学一方面要关注教育演进与变迁的主题,注重应用新方法;另一方面,更应注意把握重大社会变迁与教育演进之间的联系,把教育现象和问题,放到社会结构的框架内去解释,建设侧重教育与社会变迁两个维度上的“教育-社会”史。     

Photovoice as an evaluation tool for student learning on a field trip

Background: Photovoice is one method that enables an educator to view an experience from a student’s perspective. This study examined how teachers might use photovoice during an informal learning experience to understand the students’ experiences and experiential gain.

Design and methods: Participants in this study consisted of six students, three male and three female, ranging from ninth through twelfth grade at a rural Ohio high school, who attended a field trip to a biological field station for a four-day immersive science experience. Students were provided cameras to photograph what they believed was important, interesting, or significant during an immersive four-day science trip to a biological field station, individualizing their observations in ways meaningful to them, and enabling them to assimilate or accommodate the experiences to their schema.

Results: Analysis identified five positive benefits to use photovoice as an evaluation tool: teachers were provided qualitative evidence to evaluate student interaction on the field trip; teachers could evaluate the students’ photographs and captions to determine if the field trip met the learning objectives; students were empowered to approach the goals and objectives of the field trip by making the field trip personally relevant; students assimilated and accommodated the new observations and experiences to their own schema; students automatically reflected upon the learning experience as they captioned the photos.

Conclusions: Through photovoice, the teachers were enabled to qualitatively assess each student’s experience and learning from the field trip by illustrating what the students experienced and thought was significant; providing the teachers a method to evaluate all participating students, including those who are secretive or do not normally contribute to class discussions.