The purpose of this study was to understand what personal epistemologies and science teaching goals preservice secondary science teachers of a teacher education program in the USA bring with them to their learning to teach and how they translate such beliefs into actions. A set of essay questions, developed through a pilot study, was used to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain and develop a classification of cognitive structures (or typologies of thought), previously designated as spoke, chain and network thinking by Kinchin "et al." Design/methodology/approach: The paper shows how concept mapping can be used to reveal these conceptual typologies and endeavours to place…

Researchers (Jehng, Johnson & Anderson, 1993; Paulsen & Wells, 1998) have suggested that it is possible to divide disciplines into categories such as "applied" vs "pure". They believe that significant differences exist between the epistemological beliefs of students studying "applied" disciplines to those studying "pure" disciplines. This study…

Although primary source work is a major component of undergraduate history degrees in many countries, the topic of how best to support this work has been relatively unexplored. This article addresses the pedagogical support of primary source work by reviewing relevant literature to identify the challenges undergraduates face in interpreting…

This article presents results from a longitudinal study following a cohort of medical students. Semistructured interviews are conducted every year, in which the students tell about their experiences learning medicine, their daily life, and their social activities in relation to university. The aim of the study is to analyze how medical students…

Using Conceptual Change Theory, this qualitative study of literacy teacher education investigated how eight beginning teachers developed knowledge about multicultural literacy pedagogy. Teachers' written and spoken language was analyzed from data sources collected during and outside of a preparation course, part of a nighttime alternative…

This study examined the effects of manipulating the modality (text-only, voice-only, voice+text) of a tutorial and restriction (restricted vs. unrestricted) of a simulation's interface on retention and transfer of tutorial content. The tutorial prepared novice students to use Packet Tracer, a simulation developed by Cisco that teaches network…

In this article, the author describes his intellectual growing-up and how Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) entered into his intellectual frame and became more prominent in his philosophical-educational world. He states that for someone who set out to be a classroom science teacher, he has been inordinately fortunate in, so to…

This is an essay about the transformative power of interpretive epistemologies for those who come into the social sciences seeking meaning in the messiness of human experience. It is about how an epistemological exercise gave the author symbolic tools to become sentient of his father's subjective oppressive force in his life--with the man living…

This study investigates how learning to become a "researching professional" (Bourner, Bowden, & Laing, 2000) is understood by students undertaking a professional Doctorate of Education in one university in the United Kingdom (U.K.). This research is apposite given the present context for doctoral education both internationally and in…

There has been considerable debate on the nature of scholarship over the past two decades. A key contribution to this debate is a seminal work in which Boyer (1990) articulates an expanded notion of scholarship. One of the four functions of scholarship that Boyer identifies in this expanded view of scholarship is the scholarship of integration. In…

Vulnerable student voices are a matter for concern in contemporary higher education, but that concern is directed more towards identifying vulnerable groups, and seeking to widen their participation in higher education. It is less to do with the vulnerability of certain modes of voice when students are there. The concept of student voice may be…

This essay addresses the question, "What is quality in higher education?" In so doing it raises many interesting and vexing questions in relation to education. For example, is "quality" in higher education the same as, for example, "quality" with reference to the quality of clothing or the quality of meat in local…

Across multiple areas of educational psychology, Paul Pintrich's work was characterized by a (a) press for conceptual clarity, (b) focus on developing and refining measures, (c) conviction that researchers interested in learning and cognition should span K-12 and higher education, (d) attention to discipline and context specificity, and (e)…

Many fieldtrips are designed so that students might have direct experience of "the landscape" and/or "the people". But as Scott (1992) warns, experience of "the real world" is never transparent and unmediated. It is with this central idea in mind that the author (re)examines the epistemology of two human geography…