Scholars of civil society organizations (CSOs) have long been concerned with face-to-face interactions among participants at meetings, events, and activities--what we collectively call "convenings." Small-N ethnographies have uncovered substantial differences in the dynamics of convenings within and across CSOs. Large-N quantitative…

The purpose of this study was to explore how team members identify the social loafers on their teams and how they explain and manage social loafers' behavior. The participants (n = 49) in the study included members of student teams participating in a service project as a part of their coursework. We collected multiple sources of information:…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the use and applicability of cultural probes--an explorative participatory method to gain insights into a person's life and thoughts--to achieve person-centeredness and active involvement in self-management education for people with chronic illness. Design/methodology/approach: An education toolkit…

The goals were to (a) replicate the findings of previous research with regard to the Consultee/Teacher Version of the Interpersonal Power Inventory (IPI), and (b) advance the literature by examining IPI scores about a current consultation relationship. Sample 1 included 99 elementary school teachers (44.4% Hispanic) who completed the IPI. Results…

The goals were to (a) replicate the findings of Erchul, Raven, and Whichard (2001) with regard to the Consultee/Teacher Version of the Interpersonal Power Inventory (IPI; Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky, 1998), and (b) advance the literature by examining IPI scores about a current consultation relationship. Sample 1 included 99 elementary…

Background: Group work is often used in Physical Education (and Health-HPE). In this paper, we propose that despite: (1) its widespread use; (2) advances surrounding HPE models that utilize group strategies; and (3) a significant amount of literature dealing with group work in other school subjects, we do not have a particularly good theoretical…

Robotics provide the opportunity for students to bring their individual interests, perspectives and areas of expertise together in order to work collaboratively on real-world science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) problems. This paper examines the nature of collaboration that manifests in groups of elementary and middle school…

This study explored the impact of a parent education program and the contextual factors that influenced the experiences of families in the program. Seventeen parents completed a 9-week, face-to-face program and 15 parents completed a similar online program. This study was designed as a multiple case study and utilized multimethods for data…

Professional development is a necessary component of maintaining competency in professional practice. Technology has opened the door to new formats for delivering professional development, in addition to more traditional modes of training. This study compared three professional development formats for improving the quality of standards-based…

Under the umbrella of ubiquitous technologies, many computational artifacts have been designed to enhance the learning experience in physical settings such as classrooms or playgrounds, but few of them focus on aiding orchestration. This paper presents a systematic evaluation of the signal orchestration system (SOS) used by students for a jigsaw…

This article contends that the problem of classroom order rests less in the roles and compositions of classrooms than in the multidimensional nature of their social situations. Classroom order arises from the dynamic relationship between distinct situational requirements: the coordination of interaction into institutionalized patterns (routine)…

Collaborative learning is being used extensively by educators at all levels. Peer-led team learning in a version of collaborative learning that has shown consistent success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. Using a multi-phase research study we describe the development of an observation instrument that can be used to…

Belbin team role self and observer perceptions were applied to a large cohort (145) of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences undergraduates in a module assessed through two separate group projects. Students self-selected groups for the first project; for the second, groups were more "balanced." Results show slight improvement in…

We investigated empowerment in the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1) community, a rare, genetic disease network in the United States. The research was motivated by nine years of observations in the community. After observing what seemed to be a heightened amount of activism among Alpha-1 community members, I had hypothesized that this…

Forty-two students enrolled in an introductory child development course at the University of Kansas participated in a study which assessed student-instructor interaction in a personalized psychology course. Using Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), the instructor's role was investigated by comparing the number of interactions…