"Impact" is a notion that is not very well understood in research. Within Australian higher education, it has been bandied about within such frameworks as the "Research Quality Framework" ("RQF") and Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). Vocational education and training (VET) research is not immune from these…

This article argues for the importance of broad and on-going research to support initial or pre-service teacher education program admissions. Examples from a large initial teacher education program at one Canadian university illustrate the contributions of research to the evaluation and refinement of admission processes. These examples include…

Educational action is a species of praxis in both an Aristotelian sense and a post-Marxian sense: in the first, it involves the morally informed and committed action of the individual practitioners who practise education; in the second, it helps to shape social formations and conditions for collectivities of people. In this paper, it is argued…

Research and teaching are supposed to be closely related in universities. Among academics the belief in a symbiotic relationship is strong. However, it is unclear what form this relationship can take. Several authors have presented categories and dimensions to clarify this relationship and the aim of this project was to contribute to this…

This is the report of a project funded by the British Educational Communications and Technology Research Agency (Becta) to identify the key--but forgotten--information and communication technology research projects in the UK between 1980 and 1999 and to review the contribution that these projects can make in informing the current Becta research…

This article begins with a critical consideration of five trends in social and educational research policy and environment in the UK and internationally: (1) the intensification of public criticisms of education research since the mid- and late-1990s; (2) the increasing emphasis on user involvement and focus on use; (3) the ever tighter…

The Australian government has announced its intention to measure the quality of research in Australian universities under the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative. The process for measuring research quality through the ERA is still being developed but the government has proposed that "a suite of indicators appropriate to…

Current economic conditions and the increasing competition for government funding are leading to an increased focus on the impact of research. Measuring the impact of research is difficult because not all impacts are direct and some can be negative or result from the identification of problems that require a non-research response. The time between…

With a view to bridging the gap between elementary (primary) and secondary school second language teachers and researchers, the study reported in this paper identified differences in language register, educators' lack of access to research articles and lack of shared space for researchers and educators to communicate as causes of the gap. There is…

In this article, the "researcher" narrates the issues faced by novice researchers in choosing the correct lenses to conduct research when searching for the truth via the use of qualitative methodology. It is argued that choosing an appropriate research approach and methodology can be described as an "arduous" journey. For the…

In February 2009, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) commissioned RAND Europe to review approaches to evaluating the impact of research as part of their wider work programme to develop new arrangements for the assessment and funding of research--referred to as the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The objectives were 1) to…

In November and early December 2010, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) conducted consultations to identify research topics using the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY). LSAY tracks young people from the age of 15 to 25 as they move from school into further study, work and other destinations. It uses large,…

A variety of interventions have been attempted in education and other fields to increase the use of research use in policy and practice. However, there is still limited research on the impact of these interventions. This paper uses survey and qualitative data to analyze three interventions designed to increase research use among secondary school…

This article examines the use of institutional research data on tertiary academic success of students in the first-year Biology program at the University of Canterbury in relation to their secondary school performance in English, Mathematics with Statistics, Biology and Chemistry. This study was commissioned by the School of Biological Sciences to…

Purpose: This paper aims to report on how an Administrative Division at a research-intensive Australian university utilised feedback data from the Learning and Growth Survey, to initiate changes. Design/methodology/approach: This paper refers to the actions taken by the Administrative Division to the results obtained from the Learning and Growth…