Playing quiz-games on their phones: A winning combination?

With increasing attention on blended and mobile learning alongside an ever-increasing attempt to measure engagement means that we are constantly looking for ways or tools to help students achieve....

BERA Blog highlights from 2019

BERA Blog end of year highlights

A seasonal ‘yo-ho-ho’ to all our BERA Blog readers here in the UK and around the world in this, our fourth end-of-year-highlights special edition. The BB continues to grow, with more special...

Aesthetic education: Recent thoughts on old problems

Aesthetic education is usually concerned with the role of arts appreciation in students’ personal development. Its advocates often pitch it in opposition to instrumentalism, but in doing so,...

What I meant and the respondent assumed: Improving survey questions with cognitive interviews

When we gather survey data about human perceptions and attitudes, do we elicit answers to what we really ask? How far can self-administered questionnaires (Schwarz, 1999), with no interviewer...

Dystopian Realities and Utopian Thought: Alternative Futures for Academic Practice

This event has now been postponed. To be kept updated on when this will be reschedule for, please email events@bera.ac.uk. Dystopian and utopian thinking can inform and influence the perceptions,...

Exploring instructors’ contributions to Massive Open Online Courses

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are one of the most accessible forms of education (free to join and with no enrolment limits), and so have attracted the attention of researchers for their...

Evaluating the increased importance of the impact component in the UK’s research excellence framework

The research excellence framework (REF) evaluates the quality of the research produced by the higher education institutes (HEIs) in the UK in three areas: quality of research outputs, the impact...

Spotlight on mental health and education: New special interest group hosts inaugural conference

Over 80 delegates attended the first conference of the recently launched Mental Health, Wellbeing and Education special interest group (SIG) at the University of West London (UWL) in July. The...

Towards ‘slow pedagogy’: Revaluing the reading seminar for professional development

How ‘old school’ can it get? A text on the table and a small group of people around it. All have read the text, and gather to discuss it together. That’s the setting of a reading seminar....

Research Ethics Case Studies: 2. Researcher wellbeing & international fieldwork

Research Ethics Case Studies

Focussing on an early-career researcher embarking on her first academic role, this second entry in BERA’s  Research Ethics Case Studies series considers the ethical issues that arise not only...

Informed consent and assent, and the ethical review process, with/for research with the very young

This post introduces the challenges associated with gaining ethical review board approval, and securing the informed consent and assent of participant families, in educational research. It draws...

You don’t understand us!

'You don’t understand us or the subject!’ This is a frequent cry heard by me, as a university research ethics chair, from educational researchers trying to get ethics approval for research...