This study considers the concept of observer--the fundamental concept axial for fundamental physical theories. The history of the observer concept in physics is reviewed and summarized. In the following, the observer concept is considered with regard to science education where scientific concepts should reflect their status in science. This…

Capturing and measuring instructional patterns by using standardized observation manuals has become increasingly popular in classroom research. While researchers argue that a common vocabulary of teaching is necessary for the field of classroom research to move forward, instructional features vary across classrooms and contexts, which poses…

Critical events are incidents encountered by teachers in their practice that can potentially provoke questions about the instructional decisions made, gaining an entry to changing and improving teaching practices. Current research often conceptualises critical events as those that occur during instruction, but critical events can also occur before…

Within neoliberal regimes of educational performativity, expectations of teachers' work have become increasingly prescriptive, standardised and formulaic. To counter the reductive effects of this 'exteriority' of influence over teachers' work, we draw on three conceptual prompts--"relational pedagogy," "informality," and de…

Many instructional observation systems are designed to provide rough, qualitative, highly-evaluative assessments on numerous core dimensions of teaching. Such systems achieve comprehensive overviews of teaching but are poorly suited to answering many discovery-oriented research questions. In contrast, fine-grained agnostic systems are needed to…

The aim of teaching observations and post observation feedback in higher education is to support teachers to reflect on and improve their teaching. Yet, our understanding of tutors' (observers') and teachers' (observees') capacities for capitalising on these feedback opportunities is limited and there is little empirically derived advice for…

In this theoretical article, we propose a conceptualisation of noticing, drawing on our enactivist perspective, which takes account of what is now known about human cognition, and from which we draw out implications for how noticing develops. We review past work on mathematics teacher noticing and note the dominance of a paradigm of taking…

Emergent-based practices of leadership development (such as intentional emergence (IE), case-in-point, or group relations) rely a great deal on stopping the action in order to publicly notice group behaviors and patterns and connect what is happening authentically to conscious actions and ideas (such as course content, readings, theories, etc.).…

Instrumental variables is a popular approach for causal inference in education when randomization of treatment is not feasible. Using a first-year college program as a running example, this article reviews the five assumptions that must be met to successfully use instrumental variables to estimate a causal effect with observational data: SUTVA,…

This chapter explores the limitations of measuring teaching quality through observation of "observable behaviors" and argues for a more holistic approach to educational development that focuses on the richness of pedagogical qualities.

Noticing is an essential skill for all teachers of mathematics. Mathematics teacher educators have utilized a variety of tools to practice and develop preservice teachers' (PSTs') ability to notice, which we extend to include photographs and learning trajectories. This article explores PSTs' noticing skills by analyzing work samples from a methods…

In the article "It's Just an Observation," Robinson and Wainer (Educational Psychology Review 35, Robinson, D., & Wainer, H. (2023). It's just an observation. Educational Psychology Review, 35(83), Published online: 14 August, 2023) lamented that educational psychology is moving toward the dark side of the quality continuum, with…

To date, there have been four responses (Dumas & Edelsbrunner, "Educational Psychology Review," 35, 48, 2023; Grosz, "Educational Psychology Review," 35, 57, 2023; Mayer, "Educational Psychology Review," 35, 64, 2023; Zitzmann et al., "Educational Psychology Review," 35, 65, 2023) to the Brady et al.…

Focusing on systematic observation, one of the most potent methods of studying teaching quality, represents one of the numerous contributions of Daryl Siedentop to the profession. While he had a clear focus on issues of validity and reliability concerning systematic observation, over the past decades, attention to such issues appears to have…

Multiple approaches -- including observational and experimental -- are necessary to articulate powerful theories of learning. Our field's key questions, which rely on these varied methods, are still open. How do children perceive and produce language? What do they encounter in their linguistic input? What does the learner bring to the task of…