The first article in this special issue is about the doctoral programs, the suppliers of new doctoral graduates in special education. It focuses on one component of a larger effort, the Special Education Faculty Needs Assessment (SEFNA) project, which investigated many aspects of the supply of new doctoral graduates as well as the demand for new…

What Aneta Pavlenko discusses in this fascinating article is so widely researched, so cogently conceptualized and so richly reflected upon, that one feels like a spoilsport to bring up a debate which the author herself claims to have avoided, namely the "universalist/relativist debate about basic emotions". If I do so in this Commentary, it is not…

An introductory course is the discipline's handshake; it is the greeting that either seals the deal or in varying degrees convinces the learner that this discipline has little usefulness. Given the huge stakes in forming a strategy for the introductory course, how should we structure the course? The argument in this paper is that we should…

In their qualitative study, Young and colleagues (2009) found that youth and adults with cerebral palsy (CP), spina bifida, and acquired brain injuries of childhood in the province of Ontario, Canada, perceive or have perceived their transfer from pediatric to adult-oriented health care services as a struggle. Although publications on transition…

The authors argue that the criticisms of their earlier article on teacher logs ("Educational Researcher," March 2009) by Smagorinsky and Willis do not address, much less undermine, the evidence they presented as part of their validation argument about the teacher logs. Moreover, they argue that their method for studying classrooms is not nearly as…

This article presents an interview with Montessorians, namely Judi Bauerlein, Jack Blessington, Dr. John Chattin-McNichols, Dr. Betsy Coe, Amy Henderson, Dr. Michele Monson, Anna P. Perry, and Bretta Weiss Wolff. In an interview, these Montessorians discuss their personal Montessori journeys and their insights on Montessori as a movement over the…

In this paper we propose that all knowledge is made through social processes and is political (of the people involved). If one invests in a relational or historical ontology (a philosophical choice) there are implications for the way action learning is practiced. We illuminate some of these "relational practices". We purport that action learning…

The concept of children's rights evolved during the 1980s giving prominence to the role of children as active participants in the construction of their lives. The rhetoric of children's rights has emerged as an important consideration in all policy and practice relating to children. Implementation of children's rights in practice is necessary to…

Self-evaluation is supposed to be a valid, reliable and easy-to-use instrument to commit professionals to external quality assurance. The writing of a self-evaluation report is the first step in most higher education accreditation systems all over the world. Research on accreditation in the Netherlands and Flanders shows that professionals…

This article presents a critique on K. Amon and A. Campbell's "Can children with AD/HD learn relaxation and breathing techniques through biofeedback video games?". Amon and Campbell reported a successful trial of a commercially available biofeedback program, "The Wild Divine", in reducing symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)…

In a recent article, A. Maydeu-Olivares and D. L. Coffman (2006, see EJ751121) presented a random intercept factor approach for modeling idiosyncratic response styles in questionnaire data and compared this approach with competing confirmatory factor analysis models. Among the competing models was the CT-C(M-1) model (M. Eid, 2000). In an…

In this article, the author examines the "citizenship role" of community colleges, which causes them to devote time and resources to activities that have little to do with higher education: Is it a legitimate one for community colleges, or does it siphon off resources and energy that should be devoted to the primary educational mission? He draws…

Whilst the leadership and management of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) have become a subject for increased research and discussion, it is a concern that most of the sector has made little progress in ensuring its ability to recruit and develop the next generation of senior managers and leaders. A survey among the Directors of Human Resources…

In a series of publications, the author and his colleagues have obtained scores from students in higher education on different questionnaires, and they have described the relationships among these scores using the statistic known as Wilks' [lambda]. Burt (2005) has criticized that the use of this measure is inappropriate, arguing (1) that the…

This article examines the discrepancy between newly qualified nurses' and physicians' assessment of acquired knowledge in education and their assessment of the knowledge demands in occupational practice. Knowledge learned in educational institutions is traditionally conceived as general and decontextualised with great potential for transmission…