Weblogs or blogs for short can be personal diaries shared by individuals giving readers a sometimes voyeuristic view into the lives and minds of these virtual authors. The ability for readers to find and promote weblogs makes the practice of blogging appealing for parties wanting to market their products and services. The popularity and the…

This paper presents an ecological model of developing researcher competence, with a particular focus on doctoral students' use of research software. The model extends on theoretical work done by Young et al. ("Instructional Science 30"(1): 47-63, 2002), modelling the intentional dynamics of technological learning contexts. The development of the…

Background/Context: Evidence suggests that teachers are a critical resource in realizing high-quality educational opportunities for all students. However, many school systems across the country continue to employ large numbers of teachers who, by most indicators, do not fit into the category of "high quality." Although policy makers at…

The aim of this article is to introduce the use of the child diary as a method in daily diary research. By describing the research process and detailing its structure, a child diary, a structured booklet in which children's parents and day-care personnel (N = 54 children) reported their observations, was evaluated. The participants reported the…

Scientifically based research used to inform evidence based school reform efforts has been required by the federal government in order to receive grant funding since the reenactment of No Child Left Behind (2002). Educational evaluators are thus faced with the challenge to use rigorous research designs to establish causal relationships. However,…

The interactions that students have with each other, with the instructors, and with educational resources are valuable indicators of the effectiveness of a learning experience. The increasing use of information and communication technology allows these interactions to be recorded so that analytic or mining techniques are used to gain a deeper…

A powerful search for "curiosity" or its related topics at the online American Psychological Association PsycNET database will produce comparatively disappointing meagreness of resource. This reflects our scanty knowledge in this field though curiosity is widely recognised as one of the most important factors that contribute to motivation and…

In response to the dearth of research agendas that connect teacher education and teaching in the field and to the call for more programmatic research, the purpose of this paper is to present the Agenda for Researching Teaching (ART). The ART is a visual research agenda that spans the time from a teacher candidate learning to teach to impacting…

Crisis intervention group work is routinely provided to those that have been exposed to potentially traumatizing events. The Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) has been identified as a standard format for conducting crisis groups, yet the intervention is highly debated in the literature. This article reviews the status of that debate,…

This resource guide looks at new classroom-based literacy research that supports "all" learners, including culturally and linguistically diverse students. The authors demonstrate how teachers and researchers develop instructional practices based on multiple languages and the literacy contexts of their schools. They describe classrooms where…

A lithography lab course has been developed that is applicable to students from the middle-school level up to college students. It can also be inserted into electronics technology or similar courses in two- and four-year colleges, or used to demonstrate applications of polymers in chemistry classes. Some of these techniques would enable research…

To what extent and in what ways should researchers share their views with research participants during ethnographic fieldwork? This article discusses the author's experience of adopting different communicative stances with respondents in the context of an ethnographic study of the enactment of the English National Literacy Strategy in a "failing"…

Background: Potential environmental exposures from chemical manufacturing or industrial sites have not been well studied for rural populations. The current study examines whether chemical releases from facilities monitored through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program are associated with population mortality rates for both rural and urban…

Processes of globalization are permeating the world of higher education and escalating to a previously unprecedented degree, and institutions of higher education previously known for their cultural homogeneity are becoming increasingly heterogeneous. Consequently, cross-cultural study of higher education is evolving from a discipline investigating…

A number of academic, public, regional, and state libraries use WorldCat Local (WCL) as a resource location tool that enables users to search, find, and gain access to a range of print and electronic resources. This article describes a study undertaken to assess a Research I university's implementation of WCL. The study sought to understand the…