Spindler, an anthropologist, contends that ethnography is a discipline that seeks to describe and understand cultural experiences of others. Hammond, a teacher educator, maintains that practitioners can adapt ethnographic tools to solve practice-related problems. (Author/SK)

A nurse preceptorship program used narrative to help participants explore the complexity of pediatric clinical practice. Through narratives they shared clinical decision making, knowledge, and skills, transforming knowing into story telling into learning. (SK)

Research on academic spin-off enterprises in Wales shows that 26 were established from 1990-1999, a lower rate than in the United Kingdom overall. They made a significant contribution to local economic development. A critical challenge is to ensure proper management and structural support so they can realize their potential. (SK)

University business incubators give businesses access to labs and equipment, scientific-technical knowledge, networks, and reputation. A study of incubators in Italy shows they do not resolve inadequate funding or lack of management and financial skills. However, the networking capacity can offset these problems. (Contains 25 notes/references.)…

Suggests that professors can retain control over their intellectual property through collective bargaining and careful planning, but that there are reasonable alternatives to the privatization of academic knowledge that offer public benefits and the ensuing public confidence. (EV)

Research commercialization is a crucial aspect of technological innovation and is a complex socio-economic and technological process. This paper explores the commercialization of university research, drawing on an empirical study of the development of research commercialization by Australian universities. The study addresses three main research…

Over the past few years Research Data Services (RDS), part of the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), has led numerous large-scale, longitudinal projects. Feedback to schools has been provided for all of these projects, and has been in the form of sets of tables and charts and electronic files illustrating pupil performance and…

In this article, the author explores the role of research in education. Unlike medicine, education is not--and likely cannot be--rooted in scientific traditions. It lacks an explicit knowledge base that professionals rely upon. Opinion can be as powerful as evidence; personal experience more relevant than research knowledge. Indeed research…

Recent work integrating Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) forms a basis for systematizing action research in higher education. This basis strengthens what are often otherwise its methodological weaknesses, namely, the disconnection between analysis and subsequent plans for action and the…

Action research involves researchers and practitioners in collaborative projects and provides a means of integrating evaluation into the reform process. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

Claims that education research is flawed and that it has little or no impact on school practices have been circulating for at least 75 years, and this chorus of criticism has intensified in the past three decades. Yet the validity of such claims has not been investigated, write Biddle and Saha. The authors interviewed 120 school principals (81 in…

Schools have recently begun to place increased emphasis on the use of rigorous research evidence in guiding instructional decisions. Turning education into an evidence-based field is easier to advocate than to achieve, particularly in an environment of competing claims about what works. In this article, the author discusses the factors which…

This paper makes a case that when teachers and school leaders (administrators) engage in site-based action research they become more efficacious leaders. This paper reviews eight years of research work of site-based research projects completed by school-based personnel as well as the experiences of teachers and school administrators who have…

This keynote address argues that in order for baccalaureate and masters degree students to apply research to make better judgments and decisions in their life-affecting practice and in response to the information revolution, the helping professions need to redesign (from the bottom up) not overhaul (make a few changes in) the way research methods…

As the evidence-based practice movement gains momentum, continuing education practitioners increasingly confront the challenge of developing and conducting opportunities for achieving research uptake. Recent thinking invites new approaches to continuing education for health professionals, with due consideration of what knowledge merits uptake by…