Lack of validated research tools in Spanish-speaking countries has limited the extent to which educational research can expand. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the exploration of affective factors in reading. The need for research on reading and reading motivation in Latin American countries calls for valid, reliable tools to…

Concept maps, visual representations of knowledge, are used in an educational context as a way to represent students' knowledge, and identify mental models of students; however there is a limitation of using concept mapping due to its difficulty to evaluate the concept maps. A concept map has a complex structure which is composed of concepts and…

A web-based activity and testing system (WATS) has features such as adaptive problem sets, videos, and data-driven tools for instructors to monitor and scaffold student learning. Central to WATS adoption and use are questions about the implementation process: What constitutes "good" implementation and how far from "good" is…

This paper draws on two studies, one conducted by each author, where procedures for gaining insights into people's beliefs about mathematics and learning were developed or adapted for use by the researcher. In this paper we discuss the use in each study of variations of the procedure called "Pupil Perceptions of Effective Learning…

This paper puts forward a set of criteria for ensuring trustworthiness in design research studies undertaken by Higher Degree Research (HDR) students. Design research is aimed at exploring educational problems and refining theory and practice by defining a pedagogical outcome and is a methodological approach often associated with the Learning…

The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) realises that there is a steadily growing interest among students and all stakeholders of Higher Education and the public at large in accessing detailed and reliable information on the quality of individual study programmes, faculties and higher education institutions. ENQA…

Virtual environments, once used strictly for gaming and military training, have developed into spaces for community building and collaboration rather than competition. This literature review explores virtual worlds and underlying theories of interest to Human Resource Development (HRD). Findings suggest application opportunities for HRD in five…

This paper outlines a qualitative research tool designed to explore personal identity formation as described by Erik Erikson and offers self-reflective and anonymous evaluative comments made by college students after completing this task. Subjects compiled a list of 200 myths, customs, fables, rituals, and beliefs from their family of origin and…

The computer center of the University of Iowa is the topic of this informal panel presentation. The present structure of the facility is described in terms of batch and remote terminal services. The job scheduling method used is shown to provide acceptable turn-around times, but usage is unexpectedly low, in spite of the low cost to student users.…

Adopting the position, expressed by A. P. Bochner in his critique of small group communication research, that placing measurement in a secondary role increases the danger of accepting the claims of experiments with excessive error, this paper examines nine current quantitative small-group communication studies. Using a schema developed by J. F.…

The history of the International Communication Association's Communication Audit is briefly reviewed, and possible benefits and pitfalls of the approach are discussed. Certain assumptions and methods underlying the Communicaton Audit are critiqued. (AA)

We propose a methodology for studying the processes of learning and teaching mathematics. We will argue that this methodology carries many of the advantages of qualitative approaches while still keeping the main advantage of quantitative research methodology, which is the potential to produce findings that could be generalized. At the heart of…

This study compared and contrasted the use of hypertext and relational database knowledge representation techniques in the analysis of qualitative data. A parallel analysis of teacher interview transcripts was conducted with two computer programs: "EntryWay," a hypertext editor, and "FoxBase+/Mac," a relational database with a…

A three-dimensional model designed to depict the interrelationships among evaluation procedures, development systems, and reward structures as they affect professional personnel is offered as a research tool in this paper. The model is intended to aid in describing and understanding the productivity of professional personnel and to enhance the…

The Randomized Response Technique (RRT) appears to have promise in future work which studies the relation of school variables to disruption or delinquent behavior. The RRT is especially useful in situations when it is difficult or undesirable directly to ask stigmatizing questions. The proportions of students in this study estimated to have used…