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A third level of educational research is emerging, in addition to original research and secondary-level reviews. Whereas most third-level research syntheses focus on rather restricted topical areas, this study introduces a comparative and integrative overview of prominent second-order research on teaching, including many different types of reviews and aspects of teaching. The purpose of the study is to illuminate patterns in a second-order research topography in the widespread and multifaceted field of research on teaching from 1980 to the present, in order to discuss its implications for research and review-making. The overview encompasses 75 most-cited reviews of research on teaching published in international, refereed journals from 1980 to 2018 in the Web of Science. The overview utilised a specific coding procedure covering methodology, review topics and context. The study shows that several research traditions have contributed to advances in the research on teaching over time. Reviews have become more formalised, but the distribution of different types of review formats and research traditions is relatively constant. The single most established review format is meta-analysis, but it is less dominant than might be expected in an era of evidence-based education. The reviewers mainly belong to educational psychology, applied linguistics/research on language teaching, or research on science teaching. Whereas most reviews of research on science teaching are qualitative, reviews performed by psychologists and language-education researchers are mainly quantitative or based on mixed methods as a way to rationally and cumulatively summarise and downsize unmanageable amounts of research.

The recruitment of full professors is critical for the formation of academia. The professorship is critical not only for the prosperity of the HEIs, but especially so for the establishment, development and communication of the discipline. In this chapter, we analyze the initial step of the typecasting process in the recruitment of full professors. We use a few cases to illustrate how the intellectual and social organization of the field of education science(s) is manifested in publicly posted job advertisements. The analysis shows that the field is characterized by heterogeneity and no longer has a basis in one single discipline. New relations between research, teaching, and society can be observed, as well as a narrowing of authority of the professorship but an increase of responsibilities.

The purpose of this study is to discern and discuss issues with relevance to the tension between contextuality and generalisation, which recurrently are identified over time in research reviews of teaching methods. The 75 most cited reviews on teaching methods listed in the Web of Science from 1980 to 2017 were analysed. Since our interest is the claims made in each article about the teaching method under study, the analysis concerned the abstract, results, discussion, conclusion, and implication parts of each review. Three main issues, cutting across the reviews over time, were identified: 1) the abundance of moderating factors, 2) the need for highly qualified teachers, and 3) the research-practice gap. It is argued that the three issues reflect tensions in original research. The implications of these findings are discussed in the article. One main conclusion is that such issues ought to be more explicitly attended to and elaborated in both primary and secondary level research. The importance of viewing validity as a multidimensional concept, including internal, external, and ecological aspects, is underlined. Further, ideas from realistic reviewing are used to discuss a contextually bound approach to causality.

In this chapter, we outline the notion of peer review and its relation to the autonomy of the academic profession and the contract between science and society. This is followed by an introduction of some key themes regarding the practices of peer review. Next, we specify some reasons to further explore different practices of peer review. Briefly, the state of the art is presented. Finally, the structure of this volume and its individual contributions are presented.

The aims and meaning of education and teaching are contested. This article empirically explores the aims that dominate present research about teaching as reflected in high-impact reviews of research about teaching (n = 75). Four types of aims are discerned: knowledge/cognitive aims, social aims, aims encompassing the development of personal characteristics and democratic aims. With some exceptions, the reviews analyse teaching with regard to knowledge and cognitive aims only and do not explicitly attend to the aims of schooling or guiding documents. The implications of these empirical findings are discussed in light of the educational philosophies of Dewey and Thorndike.

This article develops knowledge about the meaning and value ascribed to educational proficiency in the recruitment of full professors. Hiring processes reflect standards that organize academia and notions of academic scholarship, its value and quality, and agents involved have an institutional gate-keeping function. The empirical data, external peer review letters, is drawn from an old comprehensive research-intensive university, offering educational programmes within a broad range of scientific domains. Although a large variety of aspects are ascribed to educational proficiency, and variations do occur across scientific domains and reviewers, the main finding is a restricted notion. A special value is assigned to the scope of doctoral supervision and teacher training. Internal individual classroom performance is focused, while scholarly interaction is less emphasized. Reviewers primarily serve as gatekeepers of disciplinary research, not the education thereof, thus educational proficiency is no game changer in the context of academic scholarship.

Temaintroduktion - : Formeringen av det pedagogiska kunskapsomradet: mot ett forskningsprogram

This study investigates knowledge structures and scientific communication using bibliometric methods to explore scientific knowledge production and dissemination. The aim is to develop knowledge about this growing field by investigating studies using international large-scale assessment (ILSA) data, with a specific focus on those using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. As international organisations use ILSA to measure, assess and compare the success of national education systems, it is important to study this specific knowledge to understand how it is organised and legitimised within research. The findings show an interchange of legitimisation, where major actors from the USA and other English-speaking and westernised countries determine the academic discourse. Important epistemic cultures for PISA research are identified: the most important of which are situated within psychology and education. These two research environments are epicentres created by patterns of the referrals to and referencing of articles framing the formulation of PISA knowledge. Finally, it is argued that this particular PISA research is self-referential and self-authorising, which raises questions about whether research accountability leads to ‘a game of thrones’, where rivalry going on within the scientific field concerning how and on what grounds ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ are constructed, as a continuing process with no obvious winner.

By analysing five separate OECD reviews of evaluation and assessment practices with Norway and Sweden as cases, our study illustrates different ways in which a specific international educational re...

This article discusses teacher autonomy in the case of the Swedish teaching profession since the 1980s. It is argued that deregulation, decentralization, and marketization reforms of the 1990s have indeed increased teacher autonomy, but in some respects also led to a increase of complexity in the Swedish school system. In order to handle this complexity, the state intensified a standardization of schooling, which restricts teacher autonomy today. Relevant the paper's understanding is that teacher autonomy is always about control, exerted internally by the profession itself and facilitated externally by state standards. The article argues that the restriction of teacher autonomy in recent times is also related to a simplified understanding of the phenomenon in the reforms of the 1990s.

Curriculum Vitae – The Course of Life is the title of the lecture given by Eva Forsberg as promotor at the Conferment Ceremony at Uppsala University in spring 2015. (Published: 29 November 2016) Citation: NordSTEP 2016, 2: 33742 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v2.33742

Drawing on data from 399 Swedish doctoral theses, this chapter explores the epistemological foundations of higher education research. Using an analytical framework whose elements are the institutional organization of researchers and knowledge, the object of study, and the object of knowledge, we found that higher education research is mainly a concern for the older universities and for research subjects within the educational sciences and, secondarily, the social sciences. The prime objects of study are topics related to teaching, followed by issues of system policy, institutional management, and knowledge work. Studies of academic work and quality are almost non-existent, and comparative studies and international perspectives are rare. Regarding the object of knowledge, doctoral students’ choices of research approaches, theories, and methods point to a diversified analytical toolbox, although dominated by text-based analyses and qualitative methods, especially interviews and documentary studies, and a range of learning and institutional theories.

This article presents a comparative study of German and Swedish teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) in relation to student assessment. It investigates the sources teachers use to im ...

Syftet med denna kunskapsöversikt är att kartlägga forskning om högre utbildning i Sverige som bedrivits sedan millennieskiftet samt ge förslag på framtida forskningssatsningar och prioriteringar. Översikten ger en samlad bild av initierad, pågående och avslutad forskning samt beskriver förutsättningarna för att bedriva och sprida forskning inom området högre utbildning. En inventering har gjorts av sökta och beviljade anslag från forskningsråd utifrån en genomgång av samtliga projektansökningar de senaste fem åren (2009-2013) till Vetenskapsrådets utbildningsvetenskapliga kommitté respektive ämnesråd för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, samt till Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. Dessutom redovisas nationella och internationella publikationer inom området från forskare vid svenska lärosäten. Studien tar även upp centrala nätverk och konferenser samt aktörer i form av forskningsmiljöer och organisationer av relevans för svensk forskning om högre utbildning. Det konstateras att forskning om högre utbildning är ett mångfacetterat fält som tar form i skärningspunkten mellan policy, praktik och kunskapen om dessa. Utbildningsvetenskaplig forskning rymmer en mångfald av forskning om lärande och om kunskapsbildning inom utbildning och undervisning. Översikten av forskning om högre utbildning har genomförts genomförs på uppdrag av Vetenskapsrådet, Utbildningsvetenskapliga kommittén. De slutsatser och reflektioner som presenteras är författarnas egna. Kunskapsöversikten har sakgranskats genom peer-review. QC 20150417

This article focuses on globalisation in Nordic curriculum theory by investigating the issue of space. It puts forward an increased interest in the practical levels of schooling and argues that globalisation should be investigated not only as a policy phenomenon but also as instructional matter in different contexts. It presents two perspectives of space, a container and a relational perspective. A distinction between the two perspectives contributes to an understanding of how the world is constructed at different levels of curriculum. The article tests its argument with an explorative social studies and citizenship textbook study in the national contexts of Sweden, England and Germany. It can be shown that all cases differ in their portrayals of globalisation and in the constructions of space-related issues. Keywords: curriculum theory; globalisation; didactics; comparative education; textbooks; social studies; civics Citation: NordSTEP 2015, 1 : 27011 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v1.27011

The significance of higher education for individuals and society as well as its size and complexity justify that research on higher education is recognised and developed. In this special issue, we ...

In 2006 a study on undergraduate thesis in two vocational programmes and two separate courses within the Swedish higher education system were conducted. In total 206 theses were evaluated by 14 experts in order to determine the scientific quality of the thesis. The following themes were assessed: the selection and formulation of a topic, link to research, theoretical awareness, methodology, the connection between theory and empirical data, formal presentation requirements and the difficulty level of the topics. In addition the experts made an over all assessment on the thesis. In th is paper special attention will be paid to the teacher education programme. The other vocational programme – nursing education – is used as a point of reference to discuss two different approaches to the under gradua te thesis. These will be addressed in terms of a consumer and a producer model. Conse quences considering students development of link to research in their under gr aduate theses are discussed in relation to the two models. It is argued that an el aborated concept of link to research requires the use of both the consumer and the producer model not only within the theses, but throughout the entire teacher education.

No abstract available.

The incidences of latent and primary Toxoplasma gondii infections in pregnant women were studied using stored sera from 4,351 women delivered in the city of Malmö, Sweden in 1982 and 1983. Infants born to mothers with signs of primary infection (seroconversion or specific IgM in sera collected during pregnancy) were studied with regard to serological evidence of congenital infection (specific IgM in cord serum). Sera were tested for specific IgG antibodies by direct agglutination test and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and for specific IgM by immunosorbent assay. 40% of the women were seropositive at delivery. Seroconversion (change from negative to positive serological status) was demonstrated in 12 pregnant women and specific IgM in the first postconceptional serum sample (indicating infection in the first trimester or in the last year(s) before conception) in another 17. The incidence of primary maternal infection was calculated to 4-6:1,000 deliveries. Among the 29 infants born to mothers with seroconversion or, alternatively, IgM in the first postconceptional sample, 6 had laboratory signs of congenital infection. One of the 6 had a positive toxoplasma isolation test in autopsy material and 5 had a clearly positive IgM value in cord serum. The real incidence of congenital infection in this material is unknown since IgM might be absent or sparse in cord serum in spite of congenital infection. The noticeable prevalence of maternal toxoplasmosis in Malmö calls for further incidence studies in Sweden.