A postgraduate student researcher coming from a context where there is an absence of an active research culture is likely to face several challenges when undertaking doctoral study at a university with a deep-rooted culture of research. They may experience academic writing, researching and thesis structuring struggles, and may specifically…

Under a previous grant (2005-08), researchers and teachers at Stanford University (SU) and the University of Gothenburg (GU) co-designed a ten-week interdisciplinary, research-based laboratory course in human biology to be taught online to undergraduate students. Essentials in the subject were taught during the first four weeks of this course.…

As a key element in teacher education programmes, action research is a learning process in which pre-service teachers inquire, reflect on and improve their teaching practices. This qualitative study sought to understand what enhanced or hindered Thai pre-service teachers' action research projects during their student teaching. This study drew upon…

The existing literature on indicators of an optimal learning environment for high-ability students frequently discusses the concept of challenge. It is, however, not clear what, precisely, constitutes appropriate challenge for these students. In this study, the authors examined an undergraduate honours course, Advanced Cell Biology, which has…

Students have their own lenses through which they view school science and the students' views are often left out of educational conversations which directly affect the students themselves. Pinar's (2004) definition of curriculum as a "complicated conversation" implies that the class' voice is important, as important as the teacher's voice, to the…

Using observations and interviews, the researchers explore the experiences and perspectives of students, teachers, and administrators at six specialized high schools with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as they pertain to the practices and structures affecting student outcomes. Four themes were found to be…

This study examines the information seeking and use behaviors of English language learners (ELLs) while performing a research task, using Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and Kuhlthau's Information Search Process as theoretical frameworks. The research tasks implemented in this study were curriculum based units where students engaged a…

Research literature on students as researchers demonstrates a spectrum of constructive ways in which students are being actively engaged in school and classroom action inquiries. Any identified tensions lie in the degree to which students themselves are genuinely engaged as action researchers. Increasingly, externally driven agendas for change and…