This book explores the ways in which small scale research studies arise from issues of practice, and how they are conceptualised, theorised and implemented using a variety of methodological approaches and frameworks. The narratives written by thirteen doctoral students tell real stories of projects and challenges that researchers face when making the transition from educational practitioner to researcher. Considering case studies from the UK, Sweden and Germany, chapters seek to investigate and inform others about how doctoral students solved individual and typical problems linking practice and research. Each methodological journey highlights and illustrates the iterative and cyclic nature of research, and the normality of the process of going back and forth between data and theory, making changes of direction as research proceeds. The book includes frameworks for combining research, theory and practice, drawing from the methodological decisions and conclusions each contributor made to develop their own practice oriented research. Narratives of Doctoral Studies in Science Education will be key reading for researchers and academics in the fields of educational research, science education, research methods and higher education, as well as masters and doctoral students undertaking their own research projects.

Many projects in recent years have applied context-based learning and engagement tools to the fostering of long-term student engagement with chemistry. While empirical evidence shows the positive effects of context-based learning approaches on students' interest, the long-term effects on student engagement have not been sufficiently highlighted up to now. Edited by respected chemistry education researchers, and with contributions from practitioners across the world, Engaging Learners with Chemistry sets out the approaches that have been successfully tested and implemented according to different criteria, including informative, interactive, and participatory engagement, while also considering citizenship and career perspectives. Bringing together the latest research in one volume, this book will be useful for chemistry teachers, researchers in chemistry education and professionals in the chemical industry seeking to attract students to careers in the chemical sector.

This volume examines the diversified and challenging experiences of Chinese international STEM doctoral students at Australian institutes of higher education, exploring how intersections between research, personal life, and social experiences can be negotiated to achieve academic success and personal transformation. By drawing on a range of qualitative and longitudinal research methods, the book foregrounds student narratives and utilizes a novel three-dimensional multi-world framework as an effective approach for understanding student experiences in a holistic way. It integrates Chinese philosophical perspectives and theories in the fields of educational psychology, international education, and doctoral education to interpret the nuances, complexity, and particularities of the cross-cultural STEM PhD experience, highlighting the importance of the supervisor–mentee relationship and the role of students’ cultural, social, and philosophical values in supporting their successful completion of the PhD degree. The analysis thus provides new insights into the ways in which these experiences vary across students, and might apply in other national contexts, and to non-STEM student cohorts. This book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics engaged in cross-cultural education, the sociology of education, and international and comparative education. It will be of particular interest to those with a focus on international doctoral education and cultural Asian studies.

Narrative Science examines the use of narrative in scientific research over the last two centuries. It brings together an international group of scholars who have engaged in intense collaboration to find and develop crucial cases of narrative in science. Motivated and coordinated by the Narrative Science project, funded by the European Research Council, this volume offers integrated and insightful essays examining cases that run the gamut from geology to psychology, chemistry, physics, botany, mathematics, epidemiology, and biological engineering. Taking in shipwrecks, human evolution, military intelligence, and mass extinctions, this landmark study revises our understanding of what science is, and the roles of narrative in scientists' work. This title is also available as Open Access.

In this volume, academics and researchers across disciplines including education, psychology and health studies come together to discuss personal, political and professional narratives of struggle, resilience and hope. Contributors draw from a rich body of auto/biographical research to examine the role of narrative and how it can be constructed to compose a life story, considering the roles of significant others, inspirational, educational and fictional characters, and those in myth and legend. The book discusses how personal narrative, often neglected in social and psychological enquiry, can be a valuable resource across a range of settings. Reference is made to the evolving role of narrative in education and health care, medicine and psychotherapy. This includes how particular narratives are hardwired into culture in ways that stifle personal and social understanding. Rather than providing a ‘how to’ guide, the book illustrates the range and power of narrative, including poetry, to re-awaken senses of self and agency in extremis. Each chapter draws on specific research, describing the context, explaining the methodology, and illuminating important findings. Discussing implications for research and practice, this book will be key reading for postgraduate and doctoral students in auto/biographical and narrative studies, and across a range of disciplines, including education, health and social care, politics, counselling and psychotherapy. It will be of interest to academics teaching research methods, and those developing biographical and auto/biographical narrative research.

This book is a collection of narratives from a diverse array of science education researchers that elucidate some of the difficulties of becoming a science education researcher and/or science teacher educator, with the hope that through solidarity, commonality, and “telling the story”, justice-oriented science education researchers will feel more supported in their own journeys. Being a scholar and teacher that sees science education as a space for justice, and thinking/being different, entry into this disciplinary field often comes with tense moments and personal difficulties. The chapter authors of this book break into many painful, awkward, and seemingly nebulous topics, including the intersectional nuances of what it means to be a researcher in the contexts of epistemic rigidness, white supremacy, and neoliberal restructuring. Of course these contexts become different depending on how teachers, students, and researchers are constituted within them (as racialized/sexed/gendered/disposable/valued subjects). We hope that within these narratives readers will identify with similar struggles in terms of what it means to desire to “do good in the world”, while facing subtle and not-so-subtle institutional, personal cultural, and political challenges.

A rich array of social and cultural theories constitutes a solid foundation that affords unique insights into teaching and learning science and learning to teach science. The approach moves beyond studies in which emotion, cognition, and context are often regarded as independent. Collaborative studies advance theory and resolve practical problems, such as enhancing learning by managing excess emotions and successfully regulating negative emotions. Multilevel studies address a range of timely issues, including emotional energy, discrete emotions, emotion regulation, and a host of issues that arose, such as managing negative emotions like frustration and anxiety, dealing with disruptive students, and regulating negative emotions such as frustration, embarrassment, disgust, shame, and anger. A significant outcome is that teachers can play an important role in supporting students to successfully regulate negative emotions and support learning. The book contains a wealth of cutting edge methodologies and methods that will be useful to researchers and the issues addressed are central to teaching and learning in a global context. A unifying methodology is the use of classroom events as the unit for analysis in research that connects to the interests of teacher educators, teachers, and researchers who can adapt what we have done and learned, and apply it in their local contexts. Event-oriented inquiry highlights the transformative potential of research and provides catchy narratives and contextually rich events that have salience to the everyday practices of teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. Methods used in the research include emotion diaries in which students keep a log of their emotions, clickers to measure in-the-moment emotional climate, and uses of cogenerative dialogue, which caters to diverse voices of students and teachers.

The 11 chapters in this book provide a glimpse into the journeys that women from diverse backgrounds and ethnic differences take in their higher education undergraduate or graduate careers. The diverse women include ethnicities of Arabic, Asian, African-American, American Indian, and Latina.

"This book explores various individual user-driven strategies that assist in solving multiple clinical system problems in healthcare, using social networking to improve their healthcare outcomes"--Provided by publisher.