Introduction: This study analyzed the effects of accommodations for children with low vision in the Griffiths Mental Development Scales--Extended Revised (GMDS-ER). Methods: The sample comprised 25 children with low vision and chronological ages between 28 and 76 months. There were two assessment phases: in the first, the Griffiths Scales were…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the potential contribution of integrated traffic and parking management strategies to ensure more rational use of available parking spaces and to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by commuters traveling to the University of Coimbra (UC) main campus. Design/methodology/approach: An integrated…

This paper reports on findings from a broader piece of research aimed at investigating the ways in which head teachers experience a new teacher evaluation policy in Portugal, particularly in regard to the challenges and perceived effects of the policy on school and on teacher development. Data were collected through a questionnaire with open and…

Peer Observation of Teaching has raised a lot of interest as a device for quality enhancement of teaching. While much research has focused on its models, implementation schemes and feedback to the observed, little attention has been paid to what the observer actually sees and can learn from the observation. A multidisciplinary peer observation of…

Current Portuguese Public Law No. 3/2008 requires the use of the International Classification of Functioning, Health and Disability for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) as a reference framework to guide assessment and intervention procedures for students with additional support needs. This study explores whether the ICF-CY use fostered multidimensional…

Aim/Purpose: From an idea of lifelong-learning-for-all to a phenomenon affecting higher education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be the next step to a truly universal education. Indeed, MOOC enrolment rates can be astoundingly high; still, their completion rates are frequently disappointingly low. Nevertheless, as courses, the…

The role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education is well recognised--learning environments where the ICT features included are being proposed for many years now. The Web Geometry Laboratory (WGL) innovates in proposing a blended learning, collaborative and adaptive learning Web-environment for geometry. It integrates a…

This article focuses on the impact of international research collaboration on individual research productivity in 11 European countries. Research productivity and international publication co-authorship of "internationalists" and "locals" (or academics collaborating and not collaborating internationally) are compared. The…

This article discusses the ways in which the community is involved in Portuguese school management. It is based on an analysis of the external evaluation reports of 298 Portuguese schools for the academic years 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09. The corpus analysed allowed the identification of two main aspects of the participation processes: (1) local…

This article presents a research study addressing the development, implementation, evaluation, and use of Interactive Modules for Online Training (MITO) of mathematics in higher education. This work was carried out in the context of the MITO project, which combined several features of the learning and management system Moodle, the computer-aided…

In this paper we give an overview of relevant findings of a three years long case study that was carried out in the Madeira Island, Portugal. It addresses a thirty years old project in music and drama education in primary schools, which involves all children within the school curriculum, but also in extra-curriculum activities. The study used…

This paper aims to examine the value of communication skills learning process through various assessments in Information Systems (IS) postgraduate units in Australia and Portugal. Currently, communication skills are indispensable to students in expanding their social networks and their knowledge at university and in the future workplace, since…

This study explores the factors affecting the development of academic excellence on a group of 33 high-achieving engineering students. Participants were interviewed individually to explore several personal and contextual aspects of their past and current academic pathways. The results obtained reflect three main contributions to the…

This article aims to demonstrate how the use of an online journal, a bilingual blog, can contribute to filling in the language and cultural gaps of foreign language learners. This case study focuses on the participation, interaction, motivation, language acquisition, feedback and cultural input improved by students of Spanish as a Foreign Language…

This monograph provides a description of the curricular area "Area-Escola" (A-E), in the context of an innovative curriculum development process, presenting the history, aims, and guidelines of this curricular area and analyzing some of the results of qualitative and quantitative studies on its impact. A-E is seen as an emerging school…