Understanding social transformation and school environments through social network analysis

Some decades ago, several studies advanced an unexpected answer to an age-old question: schools do not help students improve their social positions (see for example Coleman et al., 1966). This...

Are there individual differences in developing spatial thinking skills of university students within a web‐based GIS mapping environment?

Spatial thinking as a set of cognitive skills is essential for success in academic, workplace and everyday settings, particularly in the contemporary information age. Existing research shows that...

Can Swedish images of engineering help UK universities widen participation in engineering degrees?

Although recruitment to undergraduate degrees in engineering in the UK has risen slightly in recent years, concerns remain. Last year, Engineering UK predicted an ongoing 20,000+ shortfall in...

BERA Blog highlights from 2018

BERA Blog end of year highlights

A seasonal welcome to all our BERA Blog readers in the UK and around the world in this, our third end-of-year-highlights special edition. And what a year this has turned out to be. (I really will...

Researchers drawing on teachers’ tools: Picturebooks with migrant learners

This blog post springs from a symposium I convened at BERA Conference 2018 entitled ‘Using creative methods to explore complex topics with young participants’. The symposium reflected my...

Mobile learning and cognition

The rise of mobile learning in schools during the past decade has led to promises about its power to extend and enhance student cognitive development – for example, by providing greater...

The neglect of practice

Many BERA members will be very familiar with terms such as evidence-informed practice, evidence-based practice and research-engaged teaching. The recent BERA close-to-practice research project is...

Optimising support for children with ADHD in schools

The school environment can be particularly challenging for children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Pupils diagnosed with ADHD are typically restless, act without thinking...

In pursuit of a secure base? Education commentary in times of socio-political uncertainty

In 1973, at the beginning of the 1970s international oil crisis, and amid emergent Watergate revelations, Paul Simon sang ‘we come in the age’s most uncertain hour...’. At around the same...

The challenge of researching dialogic interactions in digital classroom contexts

Language is the most ubiquitous and flexible of the meaning-making tools. As such, it is a teacher’s main pedagogic tool (Littleton & Mercer, 2013). ‘Classroom dialogue’ can be thought of as...

Drawing a line in the sand: Reflective practice using ‘sandboxing’ with HE students

The future of educational research in Wales

The ability to reflect in and on practice (Schön, 1983; 1991) is an integral professional skill within the field of education. This metacognitive process develops effective practitioners and...

Action research in the classroom: Applying spacing and retrieval practice

The future of educational research in Wales

I have been a classroom teacher for nearly two decades, but have only recently undertaken action research. In this post I describe my experiences with spacing (Bjork & Bjork, 2014; Cepeda et al,...