Dr. Tanis Bryan graduated from Northwestern University during the beginning of the field of learning disabilities. From this beginning, Tanis has provided invaluable insight into the field through her desire to understand the social dimensions of learning disabilities. The author wishes to thank Tanis for her assistance with this interview.

This essay aims to provide a critical overview of the main themes to emerge from the Higher Education Close Up 5 conference held at Lancaster University in July 2010. The conference explored the relationship between theory and method in higher education (HE) research. This essay focuses upon four themes that developed from the proceedings. I begin…

A disconnect exists between teaching and research; and it has become easy, if not automatic, for K-12 teachers to be enthusiastic about teaching and less supportive of research. As a student teacher, the first author found herself adopting the stereotype that research is associated with the sciences and is less pertinent to K-12 education. She…

Do researchers make a difference with the research they conduct? Most people would like to think so. In this paper, the author argues that much of the research conducted by researchers is guided primarily by personal interests and needs and not because of professional needs or identified gaps in knowledge. The author also argues that experiential…

As we contemplate on teacher identity research, there is a need to place a teacher's narratives or story-lines at the center of that work. In this forum, in response to the insightful commentary from Stephen Ritchie and Maria Inez Mafra Goulart and Eduardo Soares, I place a greater emphasis on understanding Daisy's narratives from an existing…

The studies included in this special issue add significantly to the nascent literature on teacher consultation models for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and provide wonderful illustrations of how teachers might "unpack" and better understand their interventions. In this introductory essay, the authors offer suggestions for future…

This article is a transcript of the author's Keynote Address to the Fourth World Environmental Education Congress, Durban, July 2007. He has been asked to speak about environmental education research since Tbilisi, to explore what environmental education researchers might learn from this work, and look ahead to the challenges that now face them as…

Can we avoid inheriting serious issues from research related to environmental education when the researcher community is addressing education for sustainable development? This paper identifies and discusses three main issues: if an explicit and coherent concept of environmental education or education for sustainable development is missing; if the…

Responding to Bulterman-Bos (2008), the author argues that the effort to make education research more relevant is counterproductive. Teachers and researchers have different orientations toward education that arise from different institutional settings, occupational constraints, daily work demands, and professional incentives. These are not…

What are the many and varied reasons that motivate us to do this work called "research"? In this paper, we will ponder this phenomenon and discuss the reasons why ten researchers in the field (some veterans, some novices) "do" research. The outcome? Hopefully we will gain one more source of motivation to continue our individual and collective…

Considers, in a special issue on the topic, criteria for the admissibility of evidence and how methodology affects what is considered to be evidence. Argues that accessibility and accountability are more important than admissibility and that researchers should implicate their subjectivities in their research practices as well as explicate the…

Researchers should systematically seek out their subjectivity, not retrospectively when the data have been collected and the analysis is complete, but while their research is actively in progress. Demonstrates an example of this pursuit of subjectivity in the course of fieldwork. (Author/BJV)

Asserts that teacher research can provide a missing dimension to the knowledge base for teaching. Discusses critical issues of institutionalization and methodological rigor that make it difficult for teachers to conduct research studies and for the university community to acknowledge the value of teacher research. (FMW)

This article uses a series of interlinked, personal vignettes to discuss the first three years of the North American Association for Environmental Education research symposium, from the perspectives of the key organizers. Seven challenges in the field of environmental education research are identified in a recent historical context, and we…

Research and development (R & D) have been a fundamental of the human performance technology heritage. This treatise is intended to refocus the profession on the importance of R & D, presenting a classification scheme of purposes, methods, and categories for embracing multiple views of R & D. (Author/JOW)