Viewed one way, Alan Schoenfeld's main lines of research and Katherine E. Lewis's dissertation have almost nothing in common. Schoenfeld work has focused on understanding mathematical thinking and teaching, while Lewis' work has focused on mathematical learning disabilities. Viewed another way, there are strong overlaps and strong parallels. In…

In "Reviewing Employee Turnover: Focusing on Proximal Withdrawal States and an Expanded Criterion," Hom, Mitchell, Lee, and Griffeth (2012) brought together many of the most important content and process factors in the employee turnover literature. In this paper, I attempt to clarify the true contributions of this framework for the turnover area…

In this article, the author comments on two highly cited articles and how they link to wider trends in higher education research. The two papers in question, Angela Brew's article from 2003, "Teaching and research: New relationships and their implications for inquiry-based teaching and learning in higher education" and Gerlese Akerlind's…

In their target paper, "Towards a systemic theory of gifted education," A. Ziegler and S. N. Phillipson present a long awaited call for a paradigmatic shift in thinking within the field of gifted education. The paper considers how educators and researchers within the field could bring about such a change. They challenge the prevailing…

John M. Keller is one of the most recognized and respected scholars in the field of educational technology and instructional design. He has worked at the junction of psychology, education, and technology. Along with many other contributions, he has developed an instructional design theory that can be used successfully both with traditional and…

In the focus article of this issue, von Davier, Naemi, and Roberts essentially coupled: (1) a short methodological review of structural similarities of latent variable models with discrete and continuous latent variables; and (2) 2 short empirical case studies that show how these models can be applied to real, rather than simulated, large-scale…

In this commentary, I consider several theoretical and analytical aspects of Tang Wee Teo and Margery Osborne's case study. I begin by identifying structuralist and cultural themes in Tang Wee and Margery's theoretical model of human activity. Next, I offer an alternative interpretation for Tang Wee and Margery's reported findings in terms of the…

In the EU commitment to alleviating the high rates of poverty in Europe there is widespread agreement among policy-makers that it is crucial to include the voices of those who are living in poverty in order to fight exclusion most effectively. Similarly, those studying ways to address poverty and inequality are increasingly required to seek…

The purpose of this essay is to draw out key insights from Dewey's important text "Logic: The Theory of Inquiry" to provide theoretical and practical support for the emergent field of teacher research. The specific focal point is the argument in Cochran-Smith and Lytle's "Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge" on the significance of…

In their paper, Meara and Olmos Alcoy (2010) attempted to find a means of estimating productive second language (L2) vocabulary size based on the premise that many known lexical items simply do not appear in learner-produced texts. To do so, they borrowed an ecological model, in which a capture-recapture formula, the Petersen estimate, is used to…

This commentary reflects on the contributions to learning analytics and theory by a paper that describes how multiple theoretical frameworks were woven together to inform the creation of a new, automated discourse analysis tool. The commentary highlights the contributions of the original paper, provides some alternative approaches, and touches on…

Meyers & Kroeger situate two young writers in current ideologies of childhood and literacy and argue for creating dialogic classroom spaces in which children can be recognized by themselves, other children, and teachers as literate. Duckles & Larson build on the authors' attention to the potential constraints of dominant discourses and highlight…

In his article, Critchfield ("Translational Contributions of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior," "The Behavior Analyst," v34, p3-17, 2011) summarizes a previous call (Mace & Critchfield, 2010) for basic scientists to reexamine the inspiration for their research and turn increasingly to translational approaches. Interestingly, rather than…

Rosner and Kochanski (2009) noticed an inconsistency in the mathematical statement of the Law of Categorical Judgment and derived "the valid equation, the Law of Categorical Judgment (Corrected)" (p. 125). The purpose of this comment is to point out that the law can be corrected in many different ways, leading to substantially different…

In response to the authors' work on finding a more pragmatic approach to dealing with power, this commentary calls into question the possibility of a preestablished agenda by the researchers, who struggled to engage high school students. There might have been a case of overly ambitious expectations at work; also, the authors confess to being in…