In qualitative methods, there are various approaches that can be used to answer particular social questions, for example ethnography and case study. Two studies conducted by different researchers in China and Australia using these approaches were described and analysed in order to find out their similarities and differences in terms of…

The field of higher education studies has expanded dramatically in recent years. Notably, research centers/institutes and academic programs devoted to the field of higher education (tertiary education) has increased worldwide to now include peer-reviewed journals, books, reports and publications. Utilizing secondary data from 277 higher education…

Three problems which arise in the analysis of data from natural classroom settings are examined. The effects of the use of different statistical procedures are illustrated with data derived from the 1969 Home Environment and School Study in Canberra. (Author/MLW)

This paper reports some key aspects of a 2-year study of literacy, technology, and learning funded by DETYA (Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs) under the Children's Literacy National Projects program. Research reported in the paper was undertaken by a consortium made up of researchers from Queensland, New South…

This paper examines research in science education, making a case for the interpretive researcher to value both reason and emotion for generating a reflective and reflexive understanding of the classroom experiences of teachers and students. It discusses the role of rationality and emotions in fieldwork, and presents two impressionistic…

A review of Australian higher education research examines the institutional and social circumstances of the field of study and looks at such topics as participation, individual and group differences, senior high school retention, women's participation in higher education, recent enrollment downturns and recovery, economics and student finances,…

International and comparative trends in higher education since the mid-1960s throughout the world are addressed in two essays, and a bibliography of some 7,000 works of higher education worldwide is presented. The essays were commissioned by the European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES), a decentralized unit of UNESCO. Philip G. Altbach's…