In "Towards a systemic theory of gifted education", Ziegler and Phillipson offer a useful critique of current research and the current paradigm in gifted education. They provide an interesting and useful merging of systems theory with their actiotope model, and using this paradigm they suggest many fruitful areas for future research. However, the…

This paper provides a reflective analysis of the evolution of higher education as a field of scholarship in Canada. The first professors of higher education in Canada were appointed in the mid-1960s and, by the early-1970s, a small higher-education research community had emerged, with the creation of a national association and a scholarly journal.…

In this article, I draw mainly on an analysis of my research experiences in science and higher education. My aim is to construct a conceptual argument that will help explain some of the evident complexity of the higher education field and inform future developments. I propose that the study of higher education is an open-access discipline with the…

Collaboration has become a main characteristic of academic research today. New forms of research organizations, colaboratories, have come to the fore, with distributed research centres as their most complex example. In this study, we aim to provide some insight into the collaboration strategies of researchers in their daily researching activities…

We are delighted to reflect on the 10 papers highlighted in this important special issue of "Early Childhood Research Quarterly" devoted to recent secondary data analyses of the FACES and EHSREP datasets. First, we provide some background on Head Start research and give an overview of the large-scale Head Start and Early Head Start…

This article addresses the problem of how we theorise in writing about higher education through a reconstruction and interrogation of my previous work. I argue that theorising is messy, incomplete and a non-reductive process. Using C. Wright-Mills' notion of craft and Val Hey's insights into theorists who come to haunt us, I retrace the steps…

The article analyses a phenomenon that has accompanied teacher salary reform in Mongolia: the import of two global education policies that were nearly identical to the already existing local bonus system ("olympiads"). To make sense of an import that appears superfluous, the author analyses the reception and translation of the triple…

Fictional materials are commonly used in the classroom to teach course content. Both laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations illustrate the benefits of using fiction to help students learn accurate information about the world. However, fictional sources often contain factually inaccurate content, making them a potent vehicle for…

This article responds to arguments by Skidmore and Thompson (this issue of "Educational Researcher") that a graph published more than 10 years ago was erroneously reproduced and "gratuitously damaged" perceptions of the quality of education research. After describing the purpose of the original graph, the author counters assertions that the graph…

With this issue, "RiDE" continues its new occasional series of short informational pieces on archives in the field of drama and theatre education and applied theatre and performance. Each instalment includes summaries of one or more collections of significant material in the field. Over time this will build into a readily accessible…

This article interrogates the mechanisms of spatialisation (Imrie, 1996; Armstrong, 2003) and rationalisation (Foucault, 1977; Foucault, 1980; Foucault, 1982) as applied to disabled students within the Italian policy of "integrazione scolastica" (school integration). It is argued that a spatial reading of an integration policy in…

This article explores the impact of quality assurance and enhancement initiatives on teacher identities in higher education. Data from an interview-based study of a research-led institution in the United Kingdom are drawn upon to consider the implications of quality--for example, whether it has captured the inner assumptive worlds of higher…

Although students vary in their abilities and interests, "hyper-individualizing" the curriculum in an attempt to accommodate these differences is not the best way to help each student excel, write Willingham and Daniel. Drawing on educational research, the authors give examples of several cognitive must haves (things that the cognitive system…

This paper describes an educational research experience that took place in the Electrical & Electronics Engineering Master's program offered at the Escuela Universitaria de Ingenieria Tecnica de Telecomunicacion, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. The focus is to provide details of the motivation behind and the design and…

Formative assessment is a potentially powerful instructional process because the practice of sharing assessment information that supports learning is embedded into the instructional process by design. If the potential of formative assessment is to be realized, it must transform from a collection of abstract theories and research methodologies and…