Research has confirmed that people's attitudes towards starting their own business may be influenced by their education, age, gender and prior entrepreneurial experiences. To support the employability and economic success of tourism graduates, this study, conducted in the South African context, aimed to explore the predictors of tourism students'…

This research was triggered by the identified need in literature for large-scale studies about the kinds of designs that teachers create for mobile learning (m-learning). These studies require analyses of large datasets of learning designs. The common approach followed by researchers when analyzing designs has been to manually classify them…

This qualitative case study responds to calls for research on the ways critical reflection develops in preservice and novice teachers. While evaluating capacity to reflect is a dominant practice in teacher education, few studies explore empirically how different factors impact teachers' reflection. Building from earlier research that…

The present study investigated the production of the speech act of disagreement among Tunisian non-native students of English and American native speakers of English. Discourse completion test (DCT) was used to elicit disagreement strategies by the informants. Non-native informants produced a total of 376 acts and native informants produced 395…

The present empirical study seeks to explore the perceptions novice educators have toward the use of controversial public issues (CPI) in the secondary classroom. The research attempts to do this by examining the following research questions: (a) To what extent do new teachers associate the use of CPI in the classroom with broad principles of…

Biology graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are significant contributors to the educational mission of universities, particularly in introductory courses, yet there is a lack of empirical data on how to best prepare them for their teaching roles. This essay proposes a conceptual framework for biology GTA teaching professional development (TPD)…

The science education literature documents the benefits of student engagement with scientific practices. Lab reports could be an opportunity for developing student reasoning, but often prioritize learning terminology and genre-specific writing. There is potential for instructors to give students feedback that helps them to engage with scientific…

In this study we examine early career social studies teachers' use and understanding of critical simulations. We began work with participants as teacher candidates in their pre-service programs and formally studied them as they began their in-service teaching. We were particularly interested in teacher efforts to use simulation to facilitate a…

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play important instructional roles in introductory science courses, yet they often have little training in pedagogy. The most common form of teaching professional development (PD) for GTAs is a presemester workshop held at the course, department, or college level. In this study, we compare the effectiveness of…

Informed learning (Bruce, 2008) is a pedagogic framework that aims to enable students to use information to learn through the experience of variation in the relational frame. The research described in this paper comes from a larger project called Stewarding and Power In Digital Educational Resources (SPIDER) and we describe how the mixing of…

This article is based on a qualitative case study of teachers' conceptions of improvisation in teaching. Empirical data are master student teachers' texts (transcripts, reflections) based on observations and interviews of practising teachers. The texts were analysed in an abductive process. We can identify four specific characteristics of how…

This case study centers on giving real, detailed, and convenient tips for young and new qualitative researchers, especially for graduate students who are new in the field. In general, this case discusses the basics of becoming a qualitative researcher. In particular, I talk about my experience on starting my 'journey' as a qualitative researcher.…

We know from research that there is an intimate relationship between student learning and the context of learning. What is not known or understood well enough is the relationship of the students' background and previous studies to the understanding and learning of the subject area--here, computer science (CS). To show the contextual influences on…

The purpose of this qualitative investigation was to better understand teaching assistants' (TAs') perceptions of training in a guided inquiry undergraduate general chemistry laboratory context. The training was developed using existing TA training literature and informed by situated learning theory. TAs engaged in training prior to teaching (~25…

The aim of the present study is to examine factors affecting participation in telecollaborative language courses conducted in virtual world environments. From recordings of a course in sociolinguistics conducted in Second Life (SL), we determine degrees of linguistic participation (voice and chat), and triangulate these data with questionnaire…