In the last decade a number of national and international activities and public policies in the US have converged to prescribe a particular conception of educational research. Randomized control trials have been set as the ''gold standard'' and educational researchers are now pressed to come up with ''solid'' evidenced-based findings of ''what…

Five teams of teacher-researchers, 15 teachers in all, representing three Wyoming school districts and Casper College conducted classroom-based investigations and wrote about their inquiries. These teachers of prekindergarten through college collaborated to examine performance based assessment questions with an overall theme of improving science…

New Zealand's 1989 Education Act has resulted in a range of educational reforms. These reforms have offered the Maori opportunities to bring about positive educational developments for their people. Devolution of educational responsibility from a regional to a local level provided some of the space quickly utilized by the Maori. The requirement…

This report presents a teacher-based action research model for preparing classroom teachers to assume leadership roles in educational reform. A task force, convened in 1995 at one college, identified critical characteristics for integrating professional development and university requirements for a graduate degree. It evolved into a reflective…

Action research theory and practice can help encourage preservice teachers' critical reflection. The paper reviews action research theory, discusses conceptions of reflective teaching, and examines the power of action research to shape preservice teacher reflection. Several reports of how teacher educators have used action research in practice are…

Reviews 73 reports of classroom action research classified into seven groups: seeking quantifiable answers, determining results of change in classroom practice, exploring effects of program restructuring, discovering whether students can learn to use a process, establishing new professional relationships, developing new understandings of students,…

Explains that the approach to take regarding the peer review issue is to reconsider what is meant by merit in educational research and to train upcoming researchers to expand their ability to judge merit. (Contains 25 references.) (DDR)

Presents excerpts from a symposium in Charlottesville (VA) at which researchers, policymakers, and journalists discussed educational issues and the relationship of research to reform. Discusses issues concerning communication problems between groups and why it is important to keep talking with each other. Explores ways of improving the…

A Lewinian orientation to educational problems fits current innovative thinking in education (e.g., models for making education multicultural), and provides the bases of important applied work on cooperative learning techniques and constructive ways of structuring conflict within educational settings. Lewinian field theory provides a broad…

Institutional researchers' work to support analysis and decision making can be more valuable if they are trained in group dynamics and facilitation. By practicing these arts, institutional researchers can help college and university decision-makers make decisions that are grounded in the support of institutional constituents. The Step Ladder…

Describes how one high school implemented schoolwide action research teams as a comprehensive change management strategy to develop teacher leaders, teachers as change agents, and a collaborative reflective culture. The three-year case study showed that work on action research teams did not come naturally or easily, but teachers improved over time…

Discusses the recent interest in teacher research and inquiry, arguing that part of what makes it an official movement is that teacher research stems from various intellectual traditions and educational projects. Identifies five trends that characterize the movement and discusses the future of the movement in the face of current reforms that…

In this article, the authors focus on three relatively concrete reform efforts now being implemented in a number of schools of education that took part in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) study: (1) the establishment of a core of educational courses; (2) significant changes in the preparation of educational researchers; and (3) new…

"Educational Knowledge: Changing Relationships between the State, Civil Society, and the Educational Community," edited by Tom Popkewitz, is generally a collection of essays which emphasizes theoretical explications of the linkages between the state, society, and educationists. The author found that the book makes critically important…

Action research is defined as systematic classroom-based inquiry to solve teacher-perceived problems. It has been a component of education, particularly professional staff development, for the past century under several names although geography educators in the United States have rarely used it for this, or any other, purpose. This paper reviews…