The number of nontraditional students in colleges in the United States has been and is continuing to rise, but these students face difficulties that affect their motivation to persist towards graduation. Some of these difficulties include balancing multiple roles, including work, school and family demands, lack of support, financial constraints,…

This action research project examined a rural band director's attrition/retention and possible reasons for staying or leaving a position. The purpose of this case study was to describe a rural band director's experience with content-related professional development and support networks, providing access to and a process for collaboration in…

This eight-week action research project examined how art can be a possible intervention to memory loss. Five octogenarians with dementia participated in a qualitative phenomenological case study exploring the connections between memory and making art. Various methods of data collection were employed, including survey, interview, artifacts,…

This action research study investigates how the implementation of a Choice-Based Art curriculum might foster the development of self-determination in pre-kindergarten through first-grade students with diverse learning needs. Through a case study conducted over a ten-week period, the participant-researcher, an art teacher at a non-profit community…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience or with school employment. This course, Education…

This article presents an action research, which aimed to improve pupils' literary creativity and enable them to use computers connected to the internet. The study was conducted in a small district village school in Croatia. Creating a pupils' internet magazine appeared to be an excellent way for achieving the educational aims of almost all…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of trauma-informed care, specifically the application of a "identity-safe environment" in order to promote identity development in adolescents. Of specific interest to the researcher were the theories of adolescent development and techniques that serve to improve adolescent learning…

This action research based case study addresses the situation of a first year class of Business English students at Universidad de Alcalá and their attitudes towards using Web 2.0 tools and social media for language learning. During the semester, the students were asked to collaborate in the creation and use of some tools such as blogs, video…

The purpose of this case study was to explore the effects of art-making on the racial climate of a multicultural classroom of 11th graders. Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Methodology laid the foundation for approaching the topic of racial climate in an academic setting. An emphasis was placed on analyzing the developments of the…

This research paper reports on evidence from 24 teacher-led action research case studies and builds on the 2008 CfBT Education Trust published paper by Richard Churches and John West-Burnham "Leading learning through relationships: the implications of Neurolinguistic programming for personalisation and the children's agenda in England".…

Volumes of literature outline the benefits of using journals in the classroom, most of which give methods on how to generate, administer and assess student journal writings. And although vast numbers of publications overflow with literature retelling theories and methods on how to engage in reflective practice, few are the submissions of concrete…

Despite the growing number of collaborations between volunteers and professional scientists, research efforts investigating the impacts of such collaborations, which we have termed Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR), have been very limited. Examples of PPSR projects include citizen science, volunteer monitoring, and participatory…

Although an increasing number of teachers carry out action research inquiries in their educational practice, the role of pupils and students is not still sufficiently explored. In spite of the theoretical requirement for pupils to be equal participants, researchers explored the possibility of their becoming fully-fledged action researchers. This…

"Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment" (TEFA) is an innovative pedagogy for teaching secondary school science or mathematics with "classroom response system" technology. "Teacher Learning of TEFA" (TLT) is a five year research project studying teacher change in the context of an intensive, sustained, on-site professional development (PD)…

Continuing Professional Education (CPE) is usually conceived as a planned and formulated process for individual members of professional associations. This paper, by contrast, examines professional learning as a collective and distributed process, taking a whole firm, as the unit of analysis. Action Research informed by activity theory is used to…