Meta-syntheses have reported positive impacts of feedback for student achievement at different stages of education and have been influential in establishing feedback as an effective strategy to support student learning. However, these syntheses combine studies of a variety of different feedback approaches, combine studies where feedback is one of…

GIVEN the focus of this research, Rachel C. Boyle's ontological positioning is central to her response as she is a researcher from a mixed race (Black Caribbean and White British) background. Her view of racism has been shaped by personal, professional and academic experiences. Within this article the author, Louise Taylor addresses the position…

This article explores the themes of trust and ethical conduct in social research, with particular attention to the trust that can develop between the members of a research team as well as between researchers and the researched. The authors draw upon a three-year empirical study of destinations and outcomes for young people excluded from…

Educational development, which the authors use to refer to the field of professional and strategic development associated with university and college learning and teaching, can be described in many ways by referring to its different aspects. In this article the authors endeavor to categorize many of the models that have been used to describe…

National (and European) qualifications frameworks, the specification of learning outcomes and grand targets like the Lisbon goals of increasing the supply of graduates in Europe in order to achieve a more knowledge-based society are all predicated upon the idea of moving people through to higher and well-defined levels of skills, knowledge and…

The Educational Doctorate (EdD) at the University of Wolverhampton offers educational practitioners the opportunity to design a research enquiry based in, on or around their professional work. The cohort, reported on here, embarked upon their EdD studies during the 2007/08 academic year. This study reports on seven participants' learning…

Concerns with postdoctoral research training and employment outcomes are growing at an international level. Recent studies of postdoctoral and other contract researchers in various countries emphasize common issues associated with these appointments, including the absence of any systematic definition of postdoctoral research positions, lack of…

Drawing on existing work in the area of creativity and early years education, this paper maps the process of an exploratory study which sought to identify what characterizes "possibility thinking" as an aspect of creativity in young children's learning. With the aim of developing a framework for identifying "possibility…

Graduate education in Britain was studied through structured interviews with approximately 800 full-time students, postal questionnaires from about 230 part-time students, interviews with university staff, and postal questionnaires from about 2,300 past graduate students. Students were questioned concerning their reasons for their choice of…