A focus on rurality has been largely absent from much contemporary educational policy discussion. At best, rural education is a peripheral concern just as rural areas are increasingly considered marginal to the development of a globalized, networked, fast capitalism. In Canada rural, coastal, northern, and single-industry communities that were…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the admission process for an undergraduate research program in health science and to assess the students' statement of purpose for entering the program. Admission data (high school marks, supplementary application information, and overall rater score) and first-year GPA…

Understanding children's experience is increasingly a key purpose of much educational research. In contrast to traditional approaches to the study of children that emphasized the socialization of children through various stages of development, researchers within the social constructionism perspective begin with an insistence that childhood is a…

This article is about the possibilities of conducting research with children productively. Children may need suitable prompts, occasions, or media for their expression. The discussion begins with an overview of the challenges or dynamics researchers can experience with any participants in qualitative research in the constructivist paradigm. It…

The new paradigm of studying childhood that has emerged in the past 15 years has significant implications for rethinking research with children. This article examines some methodological and ethical issues related to the role and responsibility of a researcher in the process of designing, structuring, and conducting research on childhood…

This article presents three research methods--Think Alouds, Think Afters, and Think Togethers--as ways of gathering data to describe the experiences of adolescents during instructional activities. These verbal report methods were used in two studies that examined the information-seeking processes of adolescents in Inuvik, Northwest Territories and…

This work began with a question about the challenges of nonverbal communication across cultures for both immigrant children in Canadian schools and a community of researchers. The question led to the gathering of an ensemble of researchers that included both adults and children. This article represents that collaborative group's approach to a…

Multiliteracies theory, with an emphasis on literacy as diverse and negotiated social practices involving multimodal work, is particularly compatible with collaborative research, as such research enables researchers and teachers to consider students' multiple perspectives and intentions for their work. This article discusses three collaborative…

Beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, or what has been termed ''personal epistemology'', are related to learning and achievement in complex ways. These beliefs are also differentiated by discipline (e.g., math, science, history) as well as by judgment domains (e.g., personal taste, morality, meaning). This commentary on five…

Over the years, research on students' epistemological beliefs has resulted in a growing common understanding but there are still some major points of discussion. Especially, the lack of consensus on the context-general and/or context-specific nature of epistemological beliefs deserves our attention. We argue that research in the field today is…

This article reports a theoretically based study on the model of development of epistemological understanding proposed by Kuhn (2000) [Kuhn, D. (2000). Theory of mind, metacognition, and reasoning: A life-span perspective. In P. Mitchell & K. J. Riggs (Eds.), "Children's reasoning and the mind" (pp. 301-326). Hove, UK: Psychology Press], which…

With respect to the specificity and structure of epistemological beliefs, we contend that beliefs about knowledge are reflective of the multidimensional, multilayered, and interactive nature of knowledge. Here we present a model of the nested and reciprocal relations between domain-general and domain-specific epistemological beliefs. Additionally,…

This article explores the issue of domain generality of epistemological beliefs and world views of practicing teachers in the context of elementary school teaching. We describe ongoing research that examines beliefs held by teachers and their relationship to instructional practices. We examined the world views and beliefs of practicing teachers in…

Research on epistemological beliefs has clearly increased in the last decade. Even though the construct is clearer and relevant data are being collected, there are important theoretical and methodological issues that need further clarification. One of them is the debate about the domain generality-specificity of epistemological beliefs. I argue…

Visual and ICT media are often perceived as a threat to book reading in leisure time. They are accused of taking time and interest away from children and adolescents' book reading by offering them more approachable alternatives. Children and adolescents' book reading habits and the way these habits have changed over time are in focus. Is there any…