This article presents findings from a qualitative case study of informal peer groups (colloquia) in a Law programme at a major Norwegian university. The research question focused on how students perceived and experienced participation in peer colloquia, and the learning potential of such groupings is discussed in light of the formal study…

Much of the literature around the notions of discourse and identity explores how education (particularly higher education) might develop academic discourses and identities in students. There is however a dearth of work relating to what the development of academic discourses and identities in students might mean for the lecturers who teach them.…

This dissertation investigates the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST), a community engagement project that partners a community adult basic literacy program with a university writing lab. The author argues that the community and university partners, the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy (LARA) and the Purdue Writing Lab, offer positive…

This qualitative study was designed to examine the processes and practices that occurred before, during and after consolidation of the four elementary schools in the Great Local School district with the goal of developing a conceptual framework to be utilized by school districts that plan on implementing a school consolidation or reconfiguration.…

Although reading achievement correlates highly with a student's ability to do well in school, not all children achieve in reading. The purpose of this mixed-method study was to investigate whether reading instruction provided in small groups at the child's own reading level, known as "guided reading instruction," would result in…

The research presented in this dissertation utilized both quantitative and qualitative strategies to examine the impact that teacher participation in a targeted home visitation program had on their attitudes, practices, and parent participation within their classrooms. One hundred elementary school teachers were randomly assigned to the treatment…

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of first-generation persons of color attending and persisting at a community technical college. Students of color continue to be an increasing population in our higher education system. Many of these persons of color are choosing to attend two-year institutions. A great deal of research…

The qualitative case study explored teachers' perceptions and attitudes toward counseling services and alternative programs for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. The study was driven by four research questions that attempt to capture the teachers' attitudes toward and perceptions of counseling for high school students with…

The purposes of this study are to identify the features of Kodaly-inspired music teacher education programs that either confirm or refute the notion that signature pedagogies (Shulman, 2005 a, b, c) are present in this form of teacher education and to identify whether and how philosophical, pedagogical, and institutional influences support such…

There is limited research that identifies the university, familial and community factors that support the persistence of Latinas in higher education from the first to second year. The research that does exist has tended to focus on how institutional programs and activities have failed to work for first-generation students. Therefore, there is a…

Teaching children to write successfully is an area of great concern to educators in the 21 st century. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, the writing skills of two-thirds of the students in elementary, middle, and high school are below grade level proficiency (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). In 2003, the…

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) have shown promise as a means to meet the challenge of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. A problem that has surfaced is the inabilty of schools to sustain PLCs. This project study examined leadership characteristics of elementary school principals in selected school districts to determine how these…

This paper presents the findings from a small-scale case study of Hong Kong primary teachers' perceptions of the factors affecting teachers' participation in continuing professional development (CPD). The study applies a multiple approach with mixed research methods, including using a self-developed survey questionnaire on the basis of the CPD…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined Californians' views on science education. The findings are based on telephone interviews with 1,004 adults conducted April 7-22, 2010. Cell phone and Spanish language interviews were included to provide more complete coverage of California's population. In order to enhance understanding of the…

This qualitative inquiry explored the personal reading interests of 42 10th-grade students as they selected and began reading a novel. The study's goal was to inform those interested in supporting students' reading interests of what students from one rural school could and could not verbalize about their personal reading interests. The…