Empirical Educational Research Research Articles

Rediscovery of Forgotten Dimensions of Pedagogical Practice from Continental Perspective

AbstractThis article critically assesses contemporary empirical educational research, directing attention toward overlooked facets of pedagogical practice. Here, Agnes Pfrang and Daniel Castner raise questions about predominant psychological approaches to empirical educational research, instead advocating for a holistic viewpoint that encompasses the subtleties of educational situations and experiences. They highlight the learning atmosphere and pedagogical relationships as crucial dimensions often neglected by researchers. By delving into the historical evolution of the relationship between educational research and empirical pedagogy, the article underscores the ramifications of an increasing emphasis on evidence‐based approaches. It contends that conventional control measures, focused on performance metrics and rankings, inadequately encapsulate the essence of pedagogy. Pfrang and Castner call for a paradigm shift, urging a more comprehensive and context‐sensitive framework in both educational research and practice. This article serves as a rallying cry for a nuanced understanding that embraces the multifaceted nature of educational interactions, advocating for a move away from traditional metrics and toward more inclusive perspectives.

Joint online distance learning to complement postgraduate pathology training in preparation for national board examinations

AimsTo meet the flexible learning needs of pathology residents preparing for national board examinations, a joint distance learning approach was developed using both asynchronous and synchronous activities with whole slide...

Why do people go to college? The institutional environment and the educational dispositions of community college students

Empirical educational research nearly universally tacitly assumes that people attend college only in order to improve their likely earnings. Thus, it ignores the immense cultural importance ascribed to education (and particularly higher education) in modern culture, or at least proceeds as if this cultural valorization is irrelevant to individuals’ educational decision-making. I first review how an economistic model of action informs all dominant theories of educational decision-making, and then suggest how institutional theory can provide a richer account of the college transition. Drawing on in-depth interviews with first-time, first-year community college students, I illustrate this approach through a ‘thick description’ of individuals’ emerging educational orientations. I find that attending college reflects both instrumental goals and moralized conceptions of educational attainment. The decision to attend community college was informed by conceptions of college costs, a limited understanding of grant aid, and loan aversion. And I identify three educational dispositions among entering community college students which map onto institutionalized organizational pathways through the community college itself.

Identifying Implementation Strategies for Integrating Drones into STEM and Career Technology Education CTE Programs

As drone technology is rapidly becoming accessible to school children in terms of both low cost and ease-of-use, primary and secondary school teachers are beginning to consider where modern drones can play an important role in schooling. To date, there is little empirical education research printed in the education research literature guiding innovative curriculum developers in the incipient domain of drone education. As a result, teachers interested in including emerging technologies in their classrooms are often at a loss of where to begin. Through clinical interviews with schoolteachers in the United States, our study identified five readily accessible “departure points” to include drones in contemporary STEM and vocational technology (CTE) school classrooms that help teachers address common curricular goals. Taken together, these interviews reveal that teachers using drones follow one of several distinct pathways as a first step toward achieving a widespread goal of teaching students to use modern technologies to construct, pursue, and communicate findings of fruitful research inquiries—the prevalence of which is not reflected in a comprehensive review of the literature. The five dominant pathways for starting a successful drone education emerging from the interview data were as follows: timed racing trials; precision flight obstacle courses; computer coding; videography; and domain-specific knowledge of drone operation laws and ethics.

我国教育实证研究十年发展趋势——基于大样本系统随机抽样的分析

我国教育实证研究十年发展趋势——基于大样本系统随机抽样的分析

Editorial: Empirical Research in Reading and Literary Education

The empirical studies on literary education and/or literary reading have often been situated on the margins of academia. The presumption of literature as an inexhaustible knowledge has distanced this type of research from the academic sphere, although in recent decades, novel approaches have emerged that have revitalized the discipline.

How Artificial Intelligence Affects School Education

The text examines how the integration of technology and artificial intelligence into school education fundamentally alters classical notions of the role and functions of education held by representatives of various scientific disciplines. The literature review is structured around the following research questions: 1) How do technology (including artificial intelligence) reshape the sociologist Emile Durkheim's thesis on the authority of the teacher and their role in the socialization of students?; 2) How does the presence of "superintelligent" technology relate to psychologist Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation and self-actualization?; and 3) How do technology weaken the role of school education in addressing societal inequalities – an idea, advocated by the philosopher John Dewey and his daughter and educator Evelyn Dewey? The report aims to serve as a starting point for future interdisciplinary empirical research in school education, with the goal of finding comprehensive and effective solutions for how technology and artificial intelligence can positively impact school education.

What Do Pupils Learn from Voting Advice Applications in Civic Education Classes? Effects of a Digital Intervention Using Voting Advice Applications on Students’ Political Dispositions

To what extent does the use of Voting Advice Applications in (digital) civic education classes at school impact students’ political knowledge, attitudes, motivations and behavioral dispositions toward elections? This article provides answers to this question by presenting a sample analysis of the responses of 1189 pupils who participated in a digital civic education intervention, with the German Voting Advice Application Wahl-O-Mat at its core, whose usage was embedded in an elaborated didactical concept in civic education classes. Using a quasi-experimental field design with pre- and post-tests, the study shows that the intervention substantially improves students’ knowledge of the investigated state election. Furthermore, we can trace a significant increase in young people’s political efficacy and specific interest in the election campaign. Finally, we observe a substantial increase in intended electoral participation, especially among those adolescents whose intention to participate in elections was low prior to the intervention, which contributes to a reduction in existing participation gaps. In particular, we identify changes in motivational and cognitive political dispositions, but only to a limited extent evaluative and sociodemographic background variables, as key factors driving the intervention-induced change in willingness to participate in the state election. Our paper concludes by discussing the limitations of the study and its implications for empirical research and practice in civic education.

A systematic review of ethical leadership studies in educational research from 1990 to 2022

The purpose of this review was to provide an overview of the scholarly publications on ethical leadership in educational research, drawing on a database of 151 articles published between 1990 and 2022. Descriptive statistics and content analysis methods were used to identify trends in the ethical leadership literature in terms of volume and growth trajectory of ethical leadership research, geographic and journal distribution, types of articles, authorship trends, citation impact, research methods, key themes and findings associated with empirical ethical leadership research in education. The results revealed that 28% of the articles were conceptual, while the rest was empirical 72%. Within the subset of empirical articles, 61% of the studies adopted qualitative methods, followed by quantitative studies (31%), and mixed methods articles (8%). The analysis found that the ethical leadership research adapting qualitative methodology focused on four major themes: the practices of school ethical leadership; the dilemmas/challenges of ethical leadership; the leadership development of ethical educational leaders; and overlapping issues. The analysis also identified the antecedents, mediators, moderators, and outcomes associated with quantitative ethical leadership research in educational research. Recommendations were provided to strengthen future ethical leadership research.

Design-based development of educative curriculum material for deliberative human rights education

ABSTRACT Human rights education (HRE) is an urgent historically and globally recognized challenge for societies. However, it has not been sufficiently addressed by empirical and theoretical research in education. Based on the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET), there is wide agreement that HRE should include education about, through, and for human rights. We argue that a situated deliberative pedagogy can offer these three dimensions to HRE. However, this is not without challenges for teachers and students. One way to deal with these challenges and support this pedagogical innovation is to design curriculum material that supports teachers. To contribute to this, we conducted a design-based research (DBR) aimed at participative designing of educative curriculum material for human rights deliberative education. Four teachers participated in two phases of the study. Two participated in refining the material’s structure and its controversies and the other two participated in discussing the dilemmas and activities relating to implementation of the material at school with their 11th- and 12th-grade students. The results show participatory educative curriculum material designed for holistic HRE: about, through, and for HR. The implications and problems of the design process associated with a deliberative curriculum for HRE are discussed.

Confronting the ‘Coming Crisis’ in Education Research

ABSTRACT This paper examines the current crisis in education research and how we might confront it. It begins by arguing that the ‘coming crisis’ facing empirical sociology identified by Savage and Burrows (2007) applies equally – if not more so – to empirical education research. Education researchers can no longer lay claim to specialist expertise in the analysis of social institutions and our ‘tools of the trade’ are increasingly unviable. These developments are compounded by the dominance of the ‘cultural turn’ within British education research which has made it difficult for education researchers to develop a cumulative evidence base, leading to a lack of traction with policymakers and a privileging of cultural inequalities in education over economic inequalities. The paper discusses how the education research community might respond to the challenges and considers whether we might do worse than follow the suggestion offered to sociologists that they should take ‘a descriptive turn’. Taking such a turn will not be easy, but the alternative may be that education research in the UK will be even more marginalised as it becomes increasingly out-of-step with the developments in data, evidence and analysis being fostered outside the academy.

Leren lezen. Godsdienstpedagogische richtingwijzers voor het lezen van de Bijbel met jongeren

Empirical research in secondary education discloses that students lack interest, and even resist, learning about the Bible because they experience the Bible as dull and it does not speak to their modern selves. This article describes directions towards a biblical pedagogy which aims at a hermeneutic in which students develop a responsible relationship to Scripture in which they recognize its relevance for their world. The essence of wisdom as taught by Proverbs and Job, and research in the teaching of literature form the basis for the guidelines of a pedagogy that addresses student resistance and lack of interest in reading the Bible.

Teacher Beliefs and Student Learning

Bringing together research from several lines of inquiry in psychology and education, we propose a conceptual model for understanding how entrenched inequalities embedded within ecological macrosystems play out in the classroom to affect student learning. We consider how implicit teacher beliefs and belief expressions affect teacher-student interactions and relationships, student learning-related processes, and student learning outcomes. First, we review the literature on how teacher beliefs relate to student learning outcomes. Second, we discuss how teacher beliefs may shape critical classroom-level and individual-level teacher-student interactions and how these interactions can affect student factors that are critical to learning. The Teacher Beliefs and Interactions Model, a conceptual model that brings together related bodies of work that have traditionally been separate, proposes teacher beliefs as an important area of inquiry for future empirical research in education and human development.

What do pupils learn from bilingual interventions of civic education in foreign language classes?

ABSTRACT What do pupils learn from bilingual interventions of civic education? This paper addresses this question by analyzing survey responses of 301 pupils who participated in a bilingual role-play about a televised debate on the 2022 French presidential election in French foreign language classes. The study shows, first, that the intervention significantly strenghtened the specific interest in the election campaign. Second, both internal efficacy and subjective knowledge increased, as did, third, pupils' actual knowledge about the election. Fourth, it appears that the pupils were able to sharpen their understanding of French political culture. However, it should also be noted that all other constructs that can be attributed to intercultural learning did not experience any changes as a result of participation in the intervention. This is also true for participants’ general interest in politics, basal and advanced participation intentions, and external efficacy. I identify subjective knowledge about the French presidential election, internal efficacy, advanced participation intentions, and pupils’ cultural self-reflexivity as key drivers for strengthening intercultural understanding about the French political culture. Our paper concludes by discussing the limitations of the study and its implications for empirical research and practice in bilingual civic education.

Measuring reading behavior in large-scale assessments and surveys.

Large amounts of studies have shown that reading behavior is an important aspect for the development of students' reading skills. The construct reading behavior as examined in large-scale assessments and surveys within the field of empirical educational research is operationalized through a wide range of reading and reading-related aspects (e.g., reading time, reading frequency, print exposure, reading engagement, book genre preferences, knowledge of authors or book titles) and a broad array of measurement methods are used. The approaches to measure the same variable - namely reading behavior - differ fundamentally from each other, while at the same time, a clear concept that would help to classify the used measurement instruments and to interpret them in relation to the superordinate construct of reading behavior is missing. Therefore, the present article aims to give an overview of methods to measure reading behavior within the context of large-scale assessments and surveys, and to discuss how they were implemented. Finally, we make some suggestions on how it might be possible to relate the applied measurement approaches to each other, especially in terms of their content and theoretical relationship to the overarching construct of reading behavior.

Teachers’ Perceptions Regarding the Factors of Implementing Differentiated Instruction to Students with Learning Difficulties: Empirical Research in Primary Education

The main purpose of the present study was to explore the perceptions of primary school teachers of all specialties in the Dodecanese regarding the factors of implementing differentiated instruction to support students with learning difficulties in the classroom. Particularly, this study examined teachers’ perceptions regarding: a. the factors that help teachers’ ability implementing differentiated instruction in their classroom; g. the factors that hinder teachers’ ability implementing differentiated instruction in their classroom. The research was conducted in the context of the quantitative approach using an anonymous electronic questionnaire and the sample consisted of 174 primary school teachers of all specialties in the Dodecanese, from February 13, 2021 to April 28, 2021. According to the main findings, regarding the perceptions of the participants concerns the importance of the factors that enhance their ability to apply differentiated instructions in the classroom, it appears that teachers consider as the most important factors: the knowledge and experience, the staff development, the amount of planning time, the availability of materials, the range of diversity in classroom, the support of other staff, the administration/school leadership and finally, parent expectations. Additionally, in terms of the sample’s perceptions concern the importance of the factors that hinder their ability to implement differentiated instruction in the classroom, the teachers consider as the most important factors: the amount of planning time, the availability of materials, the range of diversity in classroom, the staff development (education/training), their knowledge and experience, the support of other staff, the administration/school leadership, and finally parent expectations.

Education’s Relative Autonomy: A Closer Look at the Discipline’s Past, Present, and Future

The relative autonomy of Pädagogik (education) as an academic field has always been in jeopardy. Consequently, we take a closer look at its past, present, and future. We begin by retracing the historical development of this field of study in the German-speaking context. In the second part, we look at the current state of the discipline and spotlight current developments threatening education’s autonomy, first and foremost the steep rise and dominance of Empirische Bildungsforschung (empirical educational research). In the last part, we argue for education as an independent discipline and outline how educationalists can strengthen its autonomy and disciplinary identity.

A review of lecture capture research in business education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of empirical lecture capture (LC) research in business education from the last ten years. Lecture capture was selected as it is a common delivery tool in both online and blended learning courses. By summarizing extant empirical LC research in business education, we lay the foundation for future (post-COVID-19) research in online and blended learning. We believe it is important for future research to meaningfully integrate past empirical results in order to fully assess, understand, and predict the learning modalities that will best serve business education stakeholders in a post-COVID world. To that end, we provide a compilation of empirical lecture capture results by theme that is useful for both research and teaching purposes. We also provide a condensed summary of empirical findings and recommendations that can be easily disseminated to faculty in order to facilitate instructor preparedness for teaching in this modality and as well as inform pedagogical decision-making.

Students' perceptions of online learning in higher education during COVID-19: an empirical study of MBA and DBA students in Egypt

Targeting to evaluate the analytical rigour of empirical research in management education, this study's goal is to find out how students felt about the sudden shift to online education. As well as to provide an assessment of online education performance in higher education from the students’ perception was it a success or a failure, or a path for change based on the findings? The study also considers the peculiarities of the Egyptian higher education system as well as the students’ environment, capabilities and limitations. An online questionnaire was used to survey 625 MBA and 41 DBA students. Results show that students’ satisfaction with online education is influenced by several factors, including their resources and talents. Student initiative was discovered to play a moderating role in the effects of student, instructor, and institution factors on students' satisfaction with online education. This research is being carried out during the COVID-19 outbreak to see how online instruction affects student achievement.

Cognitive versus behavioral learning analytics dashboards for supporting learner’s awareness, reflection, and learning process

ABSTRACT Several governments across the world have temporarily closed educational institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, numerous universities have seen a growing trend towards online learning scenarios. Thus, learning takes place not just within a person, but within and across the networks. However, the current implementations of open learning scenarios are facing many challenges, including: a) there is no systematic feature to track, evaluate and report the online learning activities of students; b) lack of immediacy and personal feedback; and c) lack of self-reflection. Consequently, Learning Analytics (LA) is one of the most distinguished solutions to address these challenges. In this study, the two kinds of LA dashboard, behavioral and cognitive, have been investigated. The methodological approach taken in this investigation was adopted from a design-based research framework, which blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of online learning environments. The initial sample consisted of 320 undergraduate nursing students. The cohort was divided into two groups according to the two types of LA dashboard. The findings have argued that behavioral dashboards took precedence over data evaluation items, while cognitive dashboards had the advantage in achieving the goals of LA – e.g., awareness, self-reflection, and impact on learning process.