Faith communities, such as churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques, are providing new venues for innovative adult environmental education. As faith communities turn their concerns to issues of sustainability, environmental teaching is emerging in many forms across diverse religious traditions, as evidenced by the development of denominational…

In this article we provide a critique of the interpretation and utilization of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results by the National Education Authorities in Turkey. First, we define and explain what OECD's PISA is. Second, we make an overview of the media coverage in Turkey of the PISA 2003 and 2006 results. Third, we…

In this paper we identify some of the issues and problems that we confronted while developing a new, one-semester, interdepartmental, multidisciplinary capstone design course. We implemented the following changes to the pre-existing capstone design course: (1) Utilized a website to enhance information transfer, (2) Modularized the course and…

The decentralised Swedish school system has become increasingly directed to the construction of self-governing and responsible pedagogic identities that are supposed to enable integration and participation. Drawing on the work of the geographer Edward W. Soja, I acknowledge how material and symbolic spatialisation intersect with the local…

Virtual worlds are garnering a lot of attention from educators and trainers as a new tool to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of online learning. Virtual worlds are considered beneficial to the learning process because their unique combination of features and capabilities and their richness allows the employment of new instructional…

The phenomenological study explored the lived experiences and perceptions of a purposive sample of 20 IT professionals (managers, engineers, administrators, and analysts) in the state of Virginia, Texas, and Washington DC. The focus of this research study was to learn the perceptions of IT professionals who are or once were in a decision-making…

The term "librarianship" is a generic one, suggesting one overarching discipline despite the numerous specializations and areas of research within the profession. While many disciplines use bibliometric analysis of their literature to define subfields of study within, such methods are not appropriate to librarianship due to the nature of…

The purpose of this research study was to determine what service attributes were perceived as important factors for a successful Office of Research Administration (ORA) to provide to principal investigators and department administrators. Initially established more than 50 years ago, The Office of Research Administration (ORA) has evolved into an…

The purpose of this study is to understand how a policy that provided college-prep coursework for low-skill students may affect instructional organization within schools, and how such effects on instructional organization may have unintended consequences on academic outcomes of high-skill students who were not targeted by the policy. The author…

Using the conceptual model of social structure and personality framework (House, 1981) as a theoretical guide, this cross sectional mixed-method design examined how organizational structure and culture relate to practices for training direct care workers in 328 aging and disability network service provider organizations in Pennsylvania. To…

The mixed method study focused on increasing blood donations from staff who work in a blood collecting organization and relies on Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model as a framework. The qualitative phase of the study involved focus groups. Information from the focus groups and the literature review were used to create hypotheses. A survey was…

In this Carnegie essay by Anthony Bryk, Louis Gomez and Alicia Grunow, the authors argue that the social organization of the research enterprise is badly broken and a very different alternative is needed. They instead support a science of improvement research and introduce the idea of a networked improvement community that creates the purposeful…

Organizations and other sponsors of training face increasing pressure to demonstrate the value or impact of their training programs on individual and organizational performance. A critical element in the validation of training effectiveness is the permanent transfer of learned knowledge, skills, and behaviors to the workplace. The generalization…

This research brief highlights three effective financing strategies that successful youth-serving organizations are using to maintain quality services despite difficult economic times. The brief provides examples of how organizations have implemented these strategies and offers tips to help leaders consider how best to adapt these strategies to…

"Impact of For-Profit and Nonprofit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Intervention, 2002-2008" examined whether shifting from traditional district management to management by a for-profit or nonprofit organization improves student achievement. The study analyzed data on six cohorts of elementary and middle school…