The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to better understand the role emerging technologies are playing in learning. This dissertation explores tools on a spectrum of reality from fully immersive virtual reality (VR), semi-immersive VR, non-immersive VR, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (XR). Three studies…

This article asks difficult questions about higher-education courses provided by Western institutions to people living in refugee camps. It critically examines a blended-learning approach that incorporates a massive online open course (MOOC) into a scaffolded higher-education program--the University of Geneva's Connected Blended Learning model--in…

For a century, AERA has had as its mission using research to improve K-12 and higher education practices. Born in a period of reform, the Association's mission--reformist both in spirit and the letter--has been articulated time and again by its elected presidents. As different reform movements have swept across U.S. schools, as demographics and…

The Big Data movement and the renewed focus on data analytics are transforming everything from healthcare delivery systems to the way cities deliver services to residents. Now is the time to examine how this Big Data could help build smarter universities. While much of the cutting-edge research that is being done with Big Data is happening at…

The widespread popularity of programs for first-year students is due, in large part, to studies showing that participation in first-year programs is significantly related to students' academic success. Because students choose to participate in first-year programs, self-selection effects prevent researchers from making causal claims about the…

Resistance to more humanistic forms of science education is an endemic and persistent feature of university scientists as well as school science teachers. This article argues that science education researchers should pay more attention to its origins and to the subtleties of its stubborn influence. The paper explores some of the imperatives which…

National (and European) qualifications frameworks, the specification of learning outcomes and grand targets like the Lisbon goals of increasing the supply of graduates in Europe in order to achieve a more knowledge-based society are all predicated upon the idea of moving people through to higher and well-defined levels of skills, knowledge and…

The past 25 years have witnessed an ebb and flow of the accountability movement in the United States as national interest in and concern about the quality and effectiveness of higher education have moved in and out of the forefront of public consciousness. Today Democrats and Republicans alike are critical of higher education and calling for…

During the past decade there has been increasing public and political acceptance of the utility of inquiry and inquiry-related activities for bringing about educational improvement. Specifically, educational research, development, diffusion, and evaluation (RDDE) have been singled out as essential activities. This document presents the report of a…

Using concepts from Davenport and Prusak's "Working Knowledge" and other recent research on knowledge management, this article discusses the processes through which institutional knowledge is created, managed and transferred throughout the university and ways in which institutional researchers can improve these processes. A special emphasis is…

The mission of the Far West Consortium for DD&E training is to design, develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive and transportable training program to meet the demand for trained personnel in educational development, dissemination, and evaluation (DD&E). The program provides both preservice training and continuing education to upgrade those…

Laboratory work is one of the main forms of teaching used in chemistry, physics, biology and medicine. For many years researchers and teachers have argued in favor of or against this form of education. Student opinion could be a valuable tool for teachers to demonstrate the validity of such expensive and work intensive forms of education as…

A panel discussion on the influence of Paul Goodman, known for his brilliant attacks on American education. (Ed.)

Categorizes researchers as tinkers, tailors, soldiers, and spies and discusses how each group contributes to the improvement of science education. Tinkers direct attention to content of children's minds; tailors focus on cognitive processes and development; spies consider classroom interactions; and soldiers believe best solutions come from those…

Institutional research too often neglects essential self-study of the educational process. (Editor)