Irish science education is aiming to develop post-primary students' knowledge of and about science through the introduction of 'nature of science' (NOS) in the new junior cycle science specification. This study aimed to investigate pre-service science teachers' views about a particular aspect of NOS, namely the aims and values of science. Aims and…

School leadership is fundamental to the educational functioning of schools and their improvements of results. The study employed a qualitative approach to explore school principals' leadership styles and the educational performance of learners in high- and low-performing schools in Vhembe District, Limpopo, South Africa. The participants were…

The aim of this study is to determine the fundamental principles required for school principalship that has been defined as a profession. Sequential transformative research design was adapted as the research approach of this study. Sequential transformative research design is a kind of mixed method in which the qualitative data is prior to…

The authors of various practitioner and scholarly documents suggest markedly contrasting understandings about the nature of "policy." These divergent conceptions raise the question: What is at stake by understanding the nature of policy in one way as opposed to another? The purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to interrogate the…

This study investigated inclusion of epistemic value into Richardson and Watt Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT-Choice) framework to produce a more robust, useful teacher motivation model. We specifically examined pre-service teachers' social utility value (SUV), personal utility value (PUV) and epistemic value regarding pursuing future…

This article focuses on how the conversation on vulnerability between theologies of disability and religious education (RE) promotes encounter between pupils of different abilities. I argue that talking about the gift of vulnerability in RE can help pupils of different abilities perceive each other as full human beings. Indeed, RE can empower…

This study aims to examine the meaning-making of parents in five Icelandic preschools concerning the collaboration between preschools and families. Further, the perspectives of educators on the views of the parents were also sought. The theoretical background was Moss's ideas of democratic early childhood education and MacNaughton's ideas of power…

It is generally assumed that bare numerals (e.g., "three") have two readings: the "exactly" and the "at least" reading. It has been a matter of debate whether one of these two readings is derived from the other pragmatically. To shed light on this question research has aimed at characterizing the processing demands…

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a reclusive and enigmatic philosopher, writing his most significant work off campus in remote locations. He also held a chair in the Philosophy Department at Cambridge, and is one of the university's most recognized even if, as Ray Monk says (1990, 401), 'reluctant professors' of philosophy. Paradoxically, although…

An effective instructional approach for promoting critical thinking is a challenge not only for Higher Education but also for lower educational levels. In this paper, we argue that values and knowledge education (VaKE) is an instructional approach, which could be implemented in Higher Education to promote students' critical thinking skills and…

The overarching assessment of youth services rendered by Leslie Edmonds in 1987 remains largely true today: that its most influential force remains not research, or evidence, or constant professional improvement or addressing field-based challenges, but "superstition." Research in youth services pedagogy, likewise, offers a perpetually…

The aim of the present paper was to analyze the social value of effort versus competence in the field of education. In Study 1, participants (N = 116) were asked to indicate the importance of effort- and competence-related personality traits in achieving academic success. We also examined their meritocratic beliefs. In Study 2, middle school…

Using a schema-theoretical perspective in the field of moral cognition, we assessed response behavior of adolescent (n = 15) and adult (n = 22) individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in comparison with adolescent (n = 22) and adult (n = 22) neurotypically developed controls. We conceptualized the Intuitive Moral Reasoning Test--in five…

While on-campus student housing availability has been shown to improve retention, the interdependence between students and providers in creating the value of campus living has not been explored. This paper, therefore, draws on theories from marketing and education to investigate the role of shared responsibility in educational service outcomes…

The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt value-added models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. Such models typically link students to their teachers in the spring semester when statewide tests are administered and estimate a teacher's performance based on his or her students' learning…