This qualitative study explores three years of data from an ongoing professional development program for alumni of one university's varied teacher education programs. Participants cross secondary grade levels and disciplines. Researchers examine what transpires when controversial topics are raised within this diverse teacher discourse community.…

This study examines previously untested variables that influence social loafing in professional and technical communication group projects by determining the influence of communication quality and task cohesion on social loafing. A set-up factors model, which included group size, peer review, project scope, and method of team formation, was also…

This study investigates how students perceived social loafing and social interdependence influence group learning performance through group affective tone in undergraduate hospitality and tourism curricula. A questionnaire survey was administered to collect data from college students majoring hospitality and tourism management at four Taiwanese…

This study investigated why and how principals selected members for their instructional leadership team (ILT) and how this selection criteria and process may have impacted team members' understandings of, and behaviors on, the team. Qualitative methods, specifically interviews and observations, were used to explore team members'…

In this paper I will explain what I see as some of the core attributes of "Communities of Innovation," or communities fostering collaborative creativity, and what we have learned from the research literature about each attribute. There is a critical need to design learning environments that foster creative thinking in students,…

This reply explores issues raised in comments by Myers (2012) and Saroglou (2012) on Galen (2012) regarding whether religiosity has any influence on prosociality. Areas of contention include (a) the distinction between religious belief and other influences, mainly the socialization effects of group behavior; (b) whether behavior largely restricted…

Introduction: While group work that takes place in education contexts has been studied by researchers, student collaborative research behaviour has received less attention. This empirical case study examined the strategies that students use and the obstacles they encounter while working in collaborative information seeking contexts on an in-class…

Background: Although an ecological perspective suggests the importance of multiple levels of intervention, most bullying research has emphasized individual- and school-focused strategies. This study investigated community and family factors that influence school efforts to reduce odds of group bullying behavior and victimization. Methods: We used…

This paper investigates group/team development in computer engineering courses at a University in the Central USA from the perspective of organization behavior theory, specifically Tuckman's model of the stages of group development. The investigation, conducted through linguistic analysis of student reflection essays, and through focus group…

In order to train young professionals, instructional methodologies in engineering need not only teach students knowledge, but must also instill the values and teach the behaviors--"competencies" students can demonstrate--required of professional practice. Herein, we focus on understanding the values and behaviors of students with respect…

This study seeks to understand how a group of boys in a Durban township achieved exceptional educational results despite the severe financial, social and educational constraints they faced. Their high school typified the worst failings of the South African educational system, but they achieved academic success in the matriculation and at…

The practice and application of education data mining and learning analytics has become the focus of educational researchers. However, it is still a difficult task to explore the law of group learning and the characteristics of individual learning. In this study, the online learning logs of 1,088 students from 22 classes were analyzed from the…

Research on bullying has confirmed that social identity processes and group-based emotions are pertinent to children's responses to bullying. However, such research has been done largely with child participants, has been quantitative in nature, and has often relied on scenarios to portray bullying. The present paper departs from this methodology…

Many concurrent variables appear to influence people when they interact anonymously, either face-to-face (F2F) or in computer-mediated communications (CMC).This paper presents the results of a small exploratory research, conducted in a medical company in Italy, to investigate how the use of pseudonyms influences CMC behaviours. The study involved…

In this forum, I take a learning sciences perspective to examine the paper by Bellocchi, Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu and Sandhu ("Cultural Studies of Science Education," doi:10.1007/s11422-013-9526-3, 2013) titled "Examining emotional climate of preservice science teacher education." I characterize their approach as a social…