Successful school reform is dependent on the quality of decisions made by educational leaders. In such decision making, educational leaders are charged with using sound research findings as the basis for choosing school reform initiatives. As part of the debate regarding the usability of various evaluative research designs in providing information…

This paper develops the concept of articulated learning and relates it to the role of Academic Language and Learning (ALL) academics in facilitating the progress of international and other English as an additional language (EAL) students from program to program, between generic, academic and disciplinary skills and from their studies to the work…

The recession has concealed from many commentators in the West the overwhelming economic force of the last decade, the inexorable rise of China. Commensurate with this has been the economic and political decline of Europe and especially of the European Union. The European normative strategy in education was always an unrealised ideal. But, if the…

Using grounded theory research methodology, a theory was developed to explain how Singapore junior college science teachers implement educational reforms underpinning the key initiatives of the "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation" policy. The theory suggests Singapore junior college science teachers "deal with" implementing curriculum reforms by…

The need for more effective schools and the centrality of the teacher's role in any substantive school improvement plans are well known. Educators, political factions, and policymakers are engaged in a lively debate as to whether performance pay schemes or more substantial increments across the salary schedule are more likely to motivate teachers…

This paper begins with a focus on the problematic nature of one key term in the Bradley Report. "Socioeconomic status," or SES as commonly used, lacks clear definition leading to ongoing debates about its measurement. A working consensus on SES and its measurement is necessary for the report's recommendations to proceed effectively. Next we…

This paper considers the prospects for sustainable service/community based learning as an element of a civic engagement strategy within the context of teacher education. It draws on findings of a study of the policy, process and practice of embedding civic engagement in the higher education curriculum in Ireland and the author's experience…

How teachers respond to a new syllabus, what they say and do within the challenging landscape of educational reform and curriculum implementation in the contemporary postmodern world attracts considerable research interest from scholars. The analysis of teachers' perceptions and actions presented here is set within the context of significant…

Outcomes based education (OBE), which emphasises a radical reinterpretation of the enterprise of education, is a phenomenon enveloping the Australian compulsory education sector. This paper examines the theoretical tenets of OBE as articulated by its chief exponent, William Spady. It then explores the effects that OBE implementation is having on…

This paper presents a positivist quantitative case study of four rural Queensland schools implementing the Queensland Studies Authority's outcomes based education curriculum. Queensland's school-based management system means that these schools are operating at distinctly different points along their implementation phase. This research shows how…

This paper examines some of the research for outcomes-based education in Australia. It does not claim to be a comprehensive review--only indicative of the sorts of research behind a movement that has frequently been dismissed as being only ideologically driven. It traces the genesis of the OBE movement in the USA, how it developed in Australia in…

Since the development of the Keating Government's national statements and profiles, during the early to mid 90s, all Australian states and territories, to a greater or lesser degree, have adopted an outcomes-based education approach to school curriculum. Drawing on the writings of the US academic, William Spady, and in opposition to the more…

Various explanations and solutions have been proposed over the last ten years in relation to the ongoing problem of student lack of engagement with the middle years' curriculum in Australia. Identified contributors to this problem include an irrelevant or trivial curricular focus and ineffectual teaching and learning strategies. In this paper we…

This paper reviews the literature on the use of intensive teaching formats in the tertiary sector. The paper begins with a summary of recent changes in higher education which have led to the consideration of intensive teaching as a mode of learning. The paper then addresses two principal issues: the advantages and disadvantages of intensive…

Through feminist informed understandings of injustice, this paper draws on significant research to re-articulate prevailing issues of gender inequity within and beyond the contexts of education in Australia. Following a location of the unconvincing but pervasive warrant for boys' issues to dominate the gender equity scene, the paper turns to a…