This article presents interview information from parents to educators on the importance of teaching communication to students with autism spectrum disorder. The perspectives of three mothers of children with autism are presented to gain insight to strategies they felt helped their child to improve in the areas of interaction, communication, and…

The author of this article presents a case study of four undergraduate students who participated in a semester-long study at an East Coast Catholic university. The students were involved in critical reflection about their identities within a critical multicultural education class. They were asked to connect their personal experiences to the class…

This article investigates the dynamic overall picture concerning the development of local curriculum in Thailand through action research conducted by 27 Thai elementary school teachers in three private schools in Fang District, Chiang Mai Province. This was the teachers' first experience with action research. The article examines the following…

The purpose of this study is to direct attention inside the walls of a juvenile correctional facility to closely examine the experiences and daily lives of adolescent inmates. The ethnographic data for this study were collected through participant-observation and extended interactions in a cottage for violent male offenders in one state's…

Purpose--Sociocultural learning theories, usually premised on participation in some community, explain workplace learning well up to a certain extent. The paper aims to extend beyond these and to account for learning in repetitive and mundane work environments from a dialectical perspective. Design/methodology/approach--Based on a longitudinal…

A participant observation study, located in central Scotland, was carried out to observe the process of skill acquisition among informally trained auto mechanics in the workplace. As well as noting processes of workplace learning, the benefits/limitations of this type of learning was noted and suggestions made as to how this information may be of…

Several studies have been done on the effect of school music instruction on the self-concept of students, as well as on student perceptions of school music experiences, but few researchers have undertaken an in-depth inquiry of individual students to attempt to understand their possibly unique perceptions of school music. This case study used…

Background/Context: With the growth of the small-school movement, many urban districts have restructured large underperforming high schools into new, small high schools or schools-within-a-school designed to engage adolescents in rigorous and meaningful learning along with strong teacher-student relationships. In the case of this study, the…

This paper examines action research that has been carried out in organizations consisting of predominantly highly educated personnel. The paper revolves around discussion of the Scandinavian model of action research, asking to what degree this model, which has been developed within the framework of industrial democracy, might also serve as a…

In the 1980s, the Border Early Learning Center (BELC) was established to provide support and training for preschools and communities in South Africa. This report describes the rationale and process of an evaluation of preschools associated with the BELC. (The data and conclusions of the evaluation are not included in this report.) A questionnaire…

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), one of the most commonly used tests of cognitive ability, is difficult to administer accurately. The purpose of this study was primarily to assess interrater agreement on the WISC-R Administration Observational Checklist (WAOC), a new observational instrument that can be used by an…

Two participant observers evaluated the week-long camp experience of adult women in order to assess the appropriateness of participant observation research methods in the camp setting, to identify strengths and weaknesses of this method, and to develop guidelines for its use. The study was part of a larger evaluation of the 9th annual Women's Week…

To determine the nature of camp for senior citizens, four participant observers (staff members) conducted open-ended interviews with campers at a five-day residential camp in Oregon. Results showed universal satisfaction with the camp experience. Campers valued the wide range of activities, comfortable places to socialize, and staff relations with…

This paper examines a case of educational innovation--the introduction of new methods for teaching reading in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa--as a reality check on the appealing but sweeping theory of John Meyer and his colleagues about the diffusion of educational ideals. The paper focuses on Guinea's official adoption of the…

This paper focuses on the preparation of graduate students for teaching within graduate foreign language departments. Despite big changes and much effort that has gone into reforming the training and teaching of language education professional in recent years, teaching assistant education within the intellectual-academic work of graduate programs…