Critiquing and expanding Huizinga's theory of play in "Homo Ludens," the author argues for play as a means to access what is real and introduces a new model of play he calls the containment play expression (CPE) to challenge traditional notions about the opposition between play and work. This model, he contends, bridges this gap between…

This study tested the authoritative school climate theory that schools characterized by high structure and student support have greater levels of student engagement and that these factors are associated with higher academic achievement, as indicated by school graduation rates and school performance on state-mandated testing. The model was tested…

The Participatory Action Research (PAR) model developed by Eilks and Ralle is very well known in science education. Over the years, many teaching and learning materials have been developed and implemented in German secondary schools using this method. The success of the model encouraged us to adapt it to the university level in order to develop…

Past research has identified elements underlying modeling as a core science and engineering practice, as well as dimensions along which students' learn how to use models and how they perceive the nature of modeling. To extend these findings by a perspective on how modeling practice can be used in classrooms, we used design-based research to…

Objective: The Ecological Model was used to examine the social and environmental influences of the college environment on e-cigarette use (vaping) among college students. Participants: Undergraduate college student e-cigarette users (vapers) across three large college campuses in the southwest US from Jan 2015-Aug 2016. Methods: Thirty-three…

Identifying and understanding student difficulties with physics content in a wide variety of topical areas is an active research area within the physics education research community. Of particular value are investigations of physics topics that appear multiple times in different contexts across the undergraduate physics curriculum. As these common…

The Math Teachers' Circle (MTC) model is a widely implemented form of professional development that invites teachers to become practitioners of mathematics, thereby developing their fluency with mathematical practices. This article presents comparative case studies investigating the self-reported experiences of several MTC-participating teachers…

The "GRE"® Psychology test is an achievement test that measures core knowledge in 12 content domains that represent the courses commonly offered at the undergraduate level. Currently, a total score and 2 subscores, experimental and social, are reported to test takers as well as graduate institutions. However, the American Psychological…

Although more nuanced understandings of assessment have been proposed in the physical education literature, assessment practices remain relatively underdeveloped, and when used, tend to focus on traditional, summative evaluations of learning. However, physical education teacher education programs can be used as an intervention to help pre-service…

Mindfulness is taking a preeminent role in today's education system. In the current study the author explored how experienced MindBody Wellness instructors make sense of teaching children mindfulness. The methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis combined with autoethnography was used to interview eight teachers from the United…

Initial research has shown that simulating data from models created with computer software may enhance students' understanding of concepts in introductory statistics; yet, there is little research investigating students' development of statistical models. The research presented here examines small groups of students as they develop a model for a…

The Research Skill Development (RSD) framework was devised in 2006 to articulate what educators do when they facilitate student learning through active exploration in ways that enable their skills to grow in sophistication and rigour. This special issue of JUTLP comprises eight articles that focus on the critique, adaptation and application of the…

The purpose of this review was to introduce readers of "Child Development" to the meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) technique. Provided are a background to the MASEM approach, a discussion of its utility in the study of child development, and an application of this technique in the study of reading comprehension (RC)…

This study aimed to examine the relationship of mathematics literacy self-efficacy perceptions of preschool teachers with geometric shape recognition and number skills of children using structural equation modelling. The descriptive study adopted a relational screening model. The study sample comprised 9 teachers and 103 children selected by…

The purpose of this study is to determine the best IRT model [Rasch, 2PL, 3PL, 4PL and mixed IRT (2 and 3PL)] for the science and technology subtest of the Transition from Basic Education to Secondary Education (TEOG) exam, which is carried out at national level, it is also aimed to predict the item parameters under the best model. This study is a…