This study examines the perspectives of teacher tutors on the value of the online components of PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) courses at the University of Ulster. The work has been undertaken as part of the ESRC-funded project, "A Values-based Approach to Teacher Education." It is set within the value-laden contexts of…

Arthur M. Cohen has spoken to community college leaders on a diverse array of issues for many years. This article focuses on his contributions to this leadership in three major areas: (a) providing a vision of community colleges as collegiate institutions, (b) offering valuable and thought-provoking insight into the current context for community…

This article presents and discusses the results of a literature review that was conducted in order to understand ambivalences observed in reflections on the research-teaching nexus. As a result of this literature review, it is possible to attribute these ambivalences to the mixed use of two approaches: on the one hand, a functional approach that…

Globalisation includes not only the changes brought about by the opening up of markets and communication technology, but also those set in motion by shifts in policy relating to the responsibilities of government and the role of research and innovation in development. This paper examines the impact of globalisation on education research, policy…

In this paper I call for an unequivocal legitimisation of the living "I" in educational research. The paper itself becomes a context that explains this call. It is a report of my action research into my professional learning through working in South Africa, within the context of new policy frameworks for continuing teacher development.…

Background: This article serves as a conclusion to a TCR special issue devoted to understanding the impact of the Spencer Foundation's Research Training Grant (RTG) initiative. We examine four case reports prepared by scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at Los Angeles…

Student departure from postsecondary institutions has been one of the central topics of concern discussed widely by policymakers, institutional personnel, and educational researchers at various levels. However, many existing studies have failed to address issues related to the timing of student departure from college. This article discusses the…

Three issues emanating from the Bulterman-Bos article (2008) form the core of this commentary. First, the issue of relevancy is addressed from the standpoint of action research and other forms of practitioner inquiry. From this perspective, the divisions between the cultures of university and school are addressed both ways: Each can potentially be…

When students ask for a study advice, many professors would say something like this: "Read carefully. Write down unfamiliar terms and look up their meanings. Make an outline. Reread each chapter." That's not terrible advice. Some scientists would say that professors left out the most important step: "Put the book aside and hide the notes. Then…

Educational researchers and practitioners have paid considerable attention to the use of multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) in recent years in order to support learning across curricula. Among MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular environments, with over 18 million account-registered users as of May 2008. This paper reports a…

Since the publication of the Dearing report (1997) there has been an increasing emphasis on the quality of teaching and learning provision within higher education institutions (HEIs). This focus on provision has in turn generated much educational research into "approaches" to both teaching practice and student learning within higher education…

After briefly describing case-study methodology in general, a number of ways of classifying different types of case studies are identified and discussed, including positivistic, interpretive and critical inquiry orientations. Using this latter framework, different approaches to case-study research are examined regarding their different assumptions…

Today's engineering graduates will solve tomorrow's problems in a world that is advancing faster and facing more critical challenges than ever before. This situation creates significant demand for engineering education to evolve in order to effectively prepare a diverse community of engineers for these challenges. Such concerns have led to the…

In this paper, we argue that teacher-researchers, especially those in politically contested school communities, should be encouraged to conduct critical action research that is contextually bound. Such a research methodology includes tenets of critical action research, postmodern and feminist theory, and attention to how oppression manifests in…

Interviewing is key to many forms of qualitative educational research; we interview respondents for oral histories, life histories, ethnographies, and case studies (see Tierney & Dilley, 2002, for an overview of interviewing in education). Despite the primacy of verbal data in qualitative research, basic introductions to qualitative research…