Social practice theory addresses both theoretical and method/ological agendas. To date priority has been given to the former, with writing on the latter tending often to be an afterthought to theoretical expositions or fieldwork accounts. This article gives sustained attention to the method/ological corollaries of a social practice perspective. It…

Shadowing is a data collection method that involves following a person, as they carry out those everyday activities relevant to a research study. This article explores the use of shadowing in a formative evaluation of a professional development school (PDS). Specifically, this article discusses how shadowing was used to understand the role of a…

This chapter discusses issues and challenges encountered in using large-scale data sets to study educational experiences and subsequent outcomes for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. In this chapter, we argue that the linguistic and cultural diversity of Native peoples, coupled with the legal and political ways in which education…

Numerous studies have shown that college students use computers, the internet, and social networking websites (SNS) at high rates; however, all of these studies have relied on self-report measures of technology use. Research in other areas of human behavior has shown that self-report measures are considerably inaccurate when compared to actual…

Most students globally have mobile devices and the Global Students Laboratory (GlobalLab) project is integrating mobility into learning. First launched in 1991, GlobalLab builds a community of learners engaged in collaborative, distributed investigations. Long relying on stationary desktop computers, or students inputting their observations by…

This report is intended to help governors, legislators, department secretaries, and advocates find information on ways to strengthen the structure and function of their existing cabinets, or create a new cabinet. The survey in this report is the nation's only survey of state child and youth policy coordinating bodies. The biennial survey assesses…

High rates of Information Technology (IT) project failures continues; fail to meet established deadlines, exceeding budget, or not agreed-upon functionality. Failure often results from a fundamental confusion over what is involved in the project. Methods that have provided project success in Service and Manufacturing industries have not been…

How can attention to kinship enhance the qualitative study of public services, such as schooling and health promotion? This question underscores several qualitative studies in which the authors have been involved, each engaging what we call the 'family sample' method summarized here. Involving research in Europe, Africa, North and South Americas,…

There are several factors that contribute to the shrinking supply of teachers. Fewer individuals are pursuing teaching as a career; in the United States, for example, teacher education enrollments plunged 35% between 2009 and 2014 (Berry & Shields, 2017). In direct relation to the decrease in students entering preservice teaching, fewer…

This report examines the structural divide between for-credit and noncredit postsecondary education and the problems it presents for people seeking better jobs with higher pay. It highlights innovative ways that some community colleges are trying to bridge the gap nationally--creating more seamless pathways between credit and noncredit…

The Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems (CCASSE) project examines how academic and student support services at not-for-profit associate-degree granting colleges are organized, funded, and staffed, and how these services can most effectively advance student success. In spring 2019, Ithaka S+R surveyed 249 chief academic and…

This article measures and discusses six teacher groups' (a) time spent working with data and (b) time devoted to particular kinds of inquiry activities, and explores various contextual factors that influence these results. The authors make use of a framework useful in describing and analyzing the stance taken by teachers when they engage with…

This paper analyzes the power relation between the interviewer and the interviewee in the qualitative research interview methodology. The paper sets out to grapple with the extent to which the dynamisms in power shifts influence data collection and analysis in the interview methodology. The exploration of power shifts in the qualitative research…

Purpose: The extant literature on school leadership development is dominated by conceptual analysis, descriptive studies of current practice, critiques of current practice, and prescriptions for better ways to approach practice. Relatively few studies have examined impact of leadership development using experimental methods, among which even fewer…

This thesis examines the state of the art of building information systems and evaluates their architecture in the context of emerging technologies and applications for deep analysis of the built environment. We observe that modern building information systems are difficult to extend, do not provide general services for application development, do…