Improvement Of Educational Practice Research Articles

What effective classroom? Towards a paradigm shift

The initiatives for educational effectiveness experienced 3 waves of movements. Each wave had its own paradigm in conceptualizing the nature of education and its effectiveness and formulating related initiatives for improvement of educational practice in the classroom. This article aims to discuss how the conceptualization and characteristics of the effective classroom are changed with the paradigm shift from the traditional site-bounded paradigm toward the new Contextualized Multiple Intelligences (CMI)-triplization paradigm. With the support of empirical data, the profiles of effective and ineffective classrooms in the 1st and 3rd waves are mapped and discussed, and some implications are drawn for research and development of a new type of classroom effectiveness.

Foucauldian scientificity: rethinking the nexus of qualitative research and educational policy analysis

This essay calls for qualitative policy analysis that can engage strategically with the increased calls for the usefulness of social policy toward the improvement of educational practice. Michel Foucault’s concept of scientificity is used as a tool against the ‘repositivization’ at work in neo‐liberal times and its ‘rage for accountability’ where refusing to concede science to scientism appears to be a central task for those invested in qualitative inquiry. The essay concludes with a sketch of a social science that stays close to the complexities of the social world in fostering understanding, reflection and action instead of a narrow translation of research into practice.

Reflections on educational research in South Africa

A definition of educational research is proposed: Educational research is a particular mode of social service, using rigorous scientific endeavours for the continuous improvement of educational practice. The key components of this definition are used to reflect on educational research in South Africa as (1) a particular mode of social service (with discussion of an ethical code for educational research and national educational research priorities), (2) scientific endeavour (with reference to the nature of educational research, dissertations, scientific articles and research programme reports), and (3) role players in the continuous improvement of educational practice (with reference to policy making and operational practice). It is evident that educational research in South Africa has a noteworthy record of national and regional impact. Present threats to its academic stature and praxiological impact can only be overcome by taking appropriate and timely research management action.

Experiments for Educational Evaluation and Improvement

To help develop and improve programs and practices in U.S. schools and classrooms, current national policies strongly encourage more widespread application of rigorous research methods for evaluating what works. Although randomized experiments have been accepted and applied as the gold standard for testing and developing innovations in other fields, most notably medicine, their application to questions in education has been infrequent. This article articulates the logic of these experiments, discusses reasons for their infrequent use in education, and presents several ways that evaluators may apply experiments to the special circumstances surrounding education. If randomization is to be more widely accepted and implemented in education, the ethical and political dilemmas of withholding services must be addressed, experiments must be adapted to fit the messy and complex world of schools and classrooms, and an even stronger federal role is needed to foster and sustain experimentation and improvement of educational practices.

Accountability and Relevance in Educational Research

Educational research has been criticised recently for being poorly conceived, self-indulgent and of little practical use. These allegations are discussed via an overview of the various functions of educational research: the production of knowledge about education, the formulation of educational policy, the promotion of improvements in educational practice, the promotion of radical change in society. The responsibilities of educational researchers are then discussed: proper attention to the functions of educational research, accountability for monies spent, recognition of responsibility for their activities. The pressures exerted by external funding bodies and the distorting effects of the research assessment exercise in the UK affect our sense of priorities here.

Professional development for school leadership: The impact of U.S. educational reform

This chapter provides an overview of three major reform proposals offered recently as strategies for the renewal and improvement of educational practice in the United States. Proposals selected for analysis include site-based management, greater freedom of choice for parents selecting schools for their children, and the adoption of accountability standards tied to the demonstration of effectiveness through reviewing student performance on mandated student achievement tests. It has been assumed that schools will improve if these measures are adopted. The chapter looks at these concepts and questions the impact that the wholesale acceptance of such practice will have on the role and function of school principals

Methodology and the Research-Practice Gap

A much neglected reason for the limited contribution of research to the understanding and improvement of educational practice is the mismatch between educational research methodologies and the generic features of practice. Increasing the match requires an account of practice that clarifies its methodological implications. I propose a problem-based methodology (PBM) in which practices are treated as solutions to practical problems and explained by inquiry into the problem-solving processes that gave rise to them. Such inquiry is guided in PBM by a constraint inclusion account of a problem and a set of criteria for debating solution adequacy. The implications of this account for the conduct and contribution of educational research are developed through a detailed discussion of recent research on school tracking.

Traces of participatory action research: reciprocity among educators

How is participatory action research sustained, and how are efforts to support it viewed over time? This interview study reports teachers' views about an effort to transform a previously bureaucratic school review process into participatory action research for the improvement of educational practice in a small school. Questions about the reciprocity of relations among the teachers, the principal and a visiting professor are addressed. Postmodernist concerns that the teachers may have been mere ‘dupes’ in the administrative and the knowledge commodification agenda of the principal and academic are allayed by the teachers' views which affirm the value of the collaboration in the enhancement of their educational work.

Children's reading strategies, metacognition, and motivation

Training studies in the field of children's reading have been useful methods for both theoretical understanding of the development of skilled reading and the improvement of educational practices. The data reported here are from an instructional study designed to improve students' use of reading strategies by increasing their metacognitive knowledge about reading. Approximately 500 third-grade and 500 fifth-grade children received an experimental curriculum that explicitly taught them to use reading strategies. An additional 600 children participated as control subjects. All children were tested at the beginning and end of the school year on a broad range of reading comprehension, strategy, metacognitive, and motivational measures. The findings indicate that children in experimental classrooms made significantly greater gains in awareness about reading than control children and demonstrated superior strategic skills. Additional analyses revealed the patterns of reading strategies, motivation, and metacognition characterizing readers of different ages and abilities. The implications of these results for conceptualizing reading and for educational practice were discussed.

Theories, Policies, and the Improvement of Educational Practice

(1979). Theories, Policies, and the Improvement of Educational Practice. The Review of Education: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 203-214.

The Forum: Individualization of Instruction: How Much Individualization?

If we attempt to identify the main causes of improvement in educational practice during this century, I believe that we must pay more attention to the development of general new sensitivities to children and the availability of new technical aids than to any deliberate applications of either educational philosophy or of educational research. Furthermore, the amus-ing (in retrospect) attempts to generalize the results of short-term one-factor laboratory experiments and normative surveys to the classroom disport many of us to applaud rather than fault these two bases for reform.

Stimulating Teacher Collaboration in the Improvement of Educational Practice

Stimulating Teacher Collaboration in the Improvement of Educational Practice

A Poll on Summer Study

T HE summer of I942 marked one of the largest full-scale experiments in the history of American education. As a result of the demands of war the great majority of American colleges and universities instituted a summer or session, enabling students to complete by September as much as an additional half-year's work. The procedures used and the schedules followed showed a great deal of variety, necessary in part because of differences due to local geography and local needs. In many cases traditional curriculum arrangements were entirely dispensed with and completely new educational techniques were adopted. Necessity produced changes which would not have occurred in a decade of peace. In the belief that the experiment forced upon the colleges might well reveal inadequacies and suggest improvements in educational practice, a careful survey of the reactions and experiences of the faculty and student body was made at Tufts College by questionnaire. Replies were received from 33 of the faculty members (75 per cent) actively employed in summer teaching and from i 6o regular Tufts students (55 per cent) who attended the summer session. These individuals, faculty as well as students, were drawn from the liberalarts school which in the previous regular school year consisted of 8o faculty members and I,048 students. The summer session consisted of two six-week periods, and a normal student program was two courses with class meetings five days a week for periods 8o minutes in length. Laboratory courses involved two to four additional afternoons a week. In the regular school year the normal student program consists of five courses, most of which meet three times a week for So-minute periods, except that science courses mean additional laboratory periods one or two afternoons a week. In six weeks of summer school the work of a regular semester was supposed to have been covered in each subject. The typical teaching-load for the summer was two courses for one of the two sixweek periods, though in certain cases the instructor taught one course each period. Summer school was a new experience for almost all of the students and for over half of the faculty. Only i 5 of the 33 faculty members had taught during any previous summer and 94

Improvement in Educational Practice

Previous articleNext article FreeImprovement in Educational PracticeErnest C. MooreErnest C. Moore Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 21, Number 5May, 1913 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/436105 Views: 4 Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.