Improvisation plays a substantial role within the world's musical cultures. The purpose of this research was to explore the essence of the experience of confident music improvising. In this phenomenological study, confidence was considered a psychological experience and the confidence of improvisers the phenomenon under examination. The researcher…

Implementing successful one-to-one computer programs where all students have access to mobile devices throughout the school day requires major stakeholders such as students, teachers and parents to support the initiative. However, parents are often the silent stakeholder when 1:1 programs are initiated and there is limited literature that explores…

Many educators in adult, community and higher education contexts are concerned with fostering reflective learning amongst their students. This paper explores the concept of critical reflection and considers how engaging with fiction may be an innovative pedagogical approach to support critical learning opportunities. Drawing upon interviews with…

This article describes a recent teacher researcher's investigation of digitized literature study at a Midwestern U.S. high school during the 2015-2016 school year that explored the use of digital literacies to support student-centered literary analysis. Digital literacy practices position literature students to connect with texts in authentic…

Research relating to children's views on their childhood and everyday activities, as well as comparative studies around this topic, is still lacking. From this background, the current study hopes to contribute new knowledge to this field of research. This study is a comparative study exploring how children aged 6-7 years experience their everyday…

One characteristic of a person having a critical thinking disposition is engaging in the activity with reflective skepticism. Skeptical attitudes can encourage a person to reflect so as to produce a correct conclusion and make the right decision. This article aims to determine: (1) the cause of students skeptic in dealing with illlogical…

Purpose: This study is to investigate how principals promote social justice to redress marginalization, inequity, and divisive action that are prevalent in schools. Research Method: This study employs a qualitative research design with semi-structured interviews. Twenty-two elementary and secondary school principals were interviewed in the Greater…

The prospective associations between negative life events (NLEs) and adolescent alcohol use was examined using the Youth Asset Study. Participants (n = 1040 adolescents, mean age = 15.8 years) completed annual interviews which included a life events scale and alcohol use in the last 30 days. Family structure and parent education were assessed as…

Shared sense-making is suggested to be key for curriculum reform. "Shared sense-making" entails constructing a collective understanding of the meaning for reform, its significance and its implications for schools, through dialogue and negotiation across the levels of the educational system. This study explored changes in hands-on…

The role of the middle manager has proved to be a difficult one to define due to the fluid nature of the tasks performed and the heterogeneity of understanding that exists for the term. This is further complicated by the differences associated with the context in which individual manager's work. This research, which explores the drive towards…

To examine different approaches to teacher autonomy in nation-states, three countries were selected for a comparative study: Estonia, Finland and Germany. The emphasis of the study lies on the subjective perceptions of upper secondary school teachers (n = 33 semi-structured interviews) regarding their curricular autonomy and experiences of being…

Special educational needs and disability (SEND) professionalism can be seen as a microcosm of the wider policy arena where traditional policy frameworks of professionalism and bureaucracy are challenged by frameworks of managerialism, consumerism and individual rights and where the neoliberal policy technologies of performativity and…

This article explores the perceptions of international students studying in the UK regarding their transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study, the challenges they faced in the process and the factors that supported that transition. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 44 taught international postgraduate students at a UK…

Purpose: To examine the influence of negotiations between students and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) on GTAs' instruction within university physical activity classes. Method: Participants were 10 GTAs working in one university. Data collection and analysis were guided by constructs from the classroom ecology paradigm. Data collection…

This study aims to apply a sequential analysis to explore the effect of learning motivation on online reading behavioral patterns. The study's participants consisted of 160 graduate students who were classified into three group types: low reading duration with low motivation, low reading duration with high motivation, and high reading duration…