This article examines alternative and supplementary ways in which theorists and researchers have sought to account for bullying behavior among students in schools. Contemporary explanations acknowledge the variety, complexity, and interactivity of both person and environmental factors in determining acts of bullying in schools. Two explanatory…

Educational discourse constantly demonstrates a cursory dichotomous view of knowledge in which positivism and relativism are contrasted, a condition which almost unavoidably results in favorable references to relativism. The difficulty lies in the objective qualities of knowledge being associated with positivist absolutism, which brings about fear…

The act of theorising turns the attention from the outcome of theory generation to the act of theory generation itself. Revans' systems "alpha," "beta" and "gamma" provide a foundational action theory that grounds the theorising process in action learning. This is the core of theorising in the praxeology of action…

The paper argues that learning analytics as a research field can benefit from a theory-informed shared language to describe sensemaking of learning and teaching data. To make the case for such shared language, first, I critically review prominent sensemaking theories to then demonstrate how studies in learning analytics do not use coherent…

Research shows a general declining trend in reading motivation as students progress through their schooling experience. This qualitative study examines how adjusting practices of rewarding reading can improve reading motivation among students. Teachers are trained in the principles of motivation and introduced to the proximal reward theory…

Qualitative secondary analysis has generated heated debate regarding the epistemology of qualitative research. We argue that shifting to an abductive approach provides a fruitful avenue for qualitative secondary analysts who are oriented towards theory-building. However, the concrete implementation of abduction remains underdeveloped--especially…

This special issue was motivated by the realization that student motivation is inherently complex and no single framework can capture it in its full richness. However, the current zeitgeist in educational psychology seems to explicitly discourage attempts at integration as researchers are incentivized to stay within their own theoretical camps. In…

The concurrent crises of climate change, a pandemic, and social unrest have laid bare systemic inequities in our economic, health, education, and criminal justice institutions that negatively impact people of color. School leaders face unprecedented challenges as they navigate these dilemmas and are compelled to address the implicit biases and…

In recent years, issues of race, racism and social justice have garnered increased attention across the nation. Although some aspects of social justice, particularly cultural sensitivity and test bias, have received similar attention within the field of educational measurement, sharp focus of racism has alluded the field. This manuscript focuses…

The concept of agency has become widely used in education, social sciences, psychology, and more. This article explores the concept of agency and provides a critical review from two main bodies of work: The social cognitive theory and the structure agency theory. The two are not the same. Structure agency theory was used to illuminate agency from…

This paper attempts to reinterpret asylum theory (1954) propounded by Ortwin Henssler (1923-2017) as a free-space theory of education, as a way of grasping the problematic nature of 'pedagogical protection.' The theoretical potential of Henssler's thought has been more appreciated, accepted, and developed in Japan than in his native Germany.…

A growing body of literature focuses on practice as a central aspect of teacher education. Whereas this approach emerged mainly from teacher preparation programs in specific content areas such as math, science, and literacy studies, socially related educational fields have served as a peripheral player alone. Recently, however, scholars have…

In a post-Trump, post-COVID-19 world, it is clear that truth is contested by fake news outlets and misinformation. Less clear is how to navigate the vicissitudes of intersectional discourse without devolving into a Richard Rortyan relativism that denies truth altogether. This paper considers the epistemic commitments of foundationalism and…

In this article, we discuss the methodological implications of data and theory integration for Theory-Based Evaluation (TBE). TBE is a family of approaches to program evaluation that use program theories as instruments to answer questions about whether, how, and why a program works. Some of the groundwork about TBE has expressed the idea that a…

In this commentary, we argue that literacy research would be more productive if researchers had a clearer, more nuanced understanding of theory. Specifically, we argue that theory in a practice-oriented field is most fundamentally productive when it provides instrumental guidance for literacy beyond academic understanding about literacy. Premises…