Drawing on 5 years' experience with collaborative activities, examines school leadership's role in creating and supporting an appropriate ambience for collaborative inquiry among teachers. Leaders can become participant-learners who contribute to a collective understanding of this practice. Learning together furnishes a sturdy scaffold for further…

Examines fourth and fifth graders' ideas about historical evidence through a year-long qualitative study of two classrooms. Discusses the results, focusing on understanding the reliability of sources, evaluating evidence and reconciling conflicting accounts, and using evidence to reach conclusions. Addresses the implications for instruction. (CMK)

Reviews three qualitative case studies on the educational systems of Japan, the United States, and Germany, conducted as a component of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). States that the studies provide a basis for understanding the differences in mathematics and science achievement among Japan, Germany, and the United…

In this response to an article that explores the practice of social inquiry in professional work by drawing from the democratic ethics of John Dewey (Danforth, 2001), tensions, unresolved issues, and seeming paradoxes in Dewey's thinking are discussed. The value of multi-perspective and multi-voiced inquiry is emphasized. (Contains references.)…

Applied qualitative methods to assess students' interest in science to responses of 2,118 German students in grades 5 through 7 to items measuring interest. Each method (additive cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and latent class analysis) is considered qualitative because it supports a focus on the structure of interest. Each approach…

A qualitative research methods course, offered for faculty at an Israeli school of education, was a significant "cultural event" promoting inclusion of qualitative methods in a strongly positivist setting. A profound change in faculty attitudes was eased by administrative support and by participants' ability to find entry points to ideas…

This article presents results of a qualitative study of values development in U.S. and Scottish social work students who participated in a study-abroad program. Six themes emerged: opening the mind to new ways of thinking; awareness and insight into one's own values and beliefs; social awareness and challenges to societal values and beliefs;…

Organized youth programs can serve as a context in which youth are connected to resource-bearing adults in the community who promote the development of social capital. This article explores the process of how this happens and what types of resources are gained by youth. Qualitative interviews were conducted with adolescents in three youth programs…

Increasingly, public health practice is turning to the application of community collaborative models to improve population health status. Despite the growth of these activities, however, evaluations of the national demonstrations have indicated that community health partnerships fail to achieve measurable results and struggle to maintain integrity…

Asynchronous online discussion has been shown to enhance communication between students and to elicit many cognitive indicators. Nevertheless, historians have often been reluctant to make use of such instructional technology. Students enrolled in a fully online world civilization course corroborated qualitative research findings regarding the…

In this study we investigate how prior knowledge influences knowledge development during collaborative discovery learning. Fifteen dyads of students (pre-university education, 15-16 years old) worked on a discovery learning task in the physics field of kinematics. The (face-to-face) communication between students was recorded and the interaction…

This chapter summarizes theoretical perspectives and research findings on developmental education, and emphasizes the importance of considering students' voices and experiences in determining how best to facilitate growth and development in college.

Although previous findings have shown that parents react intensely to the initial diagnosis of their child's disability, studies focused on long-term outcomes and adjustment are needed. We interviewed 21 mothers whose adolescent or young adult was diagnosed with Down syndrome or fragile X syndrome. Qualitative analysis of data focused on the…

Using survey and qualitative data, this study identified emergent themes that remain consistent across or differentiate among reports of women earning their doctoral degree relatively quickly ("early-finishers") and those taking considerably longer ("late-finishers"). Emergent themes included commitment to timely degree completion, faculty…

The purpose of this investigation was to explore childhood career development by examining 4th-and 5th-grade students' career and self-awareness, exploration, and career planning. Responses to written assignments provided qualitative data for analysis. Written narrative data were analyzed using consensual qualitative research methods as described…