Section archive - Theories & Approaches

The review explored 57 post-1990 empirical studies of school size effects on a variety of student and organizational outcomes. The weight of evidence provided by this research clearly favors smaller schools. Students who traditionally struggle at school and students from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds are the major benefactors of smaller schools. Furthermore, most contemporary studies have concluded that small schools are more efficient or cost-effective. Small secondary schools manage to graduate a significantly larger proportion of their students than do large secondary schools.

This theoretical paper is partly based on a series of empirical studies, conducted by the author, investigating students’ and teachers’ experiences and understanding of an internationalised educational context in Sweden. The paper examines and discusses some further implications of these studies in relation to recent publications and research concerned with internationalisation in higher education in various ways. The paper argues in favor of a shift in research perspective, from an overall external perspective to a relational, experienced and context-based perspective, to understand how internationalisation in higher education is developed in practice.

This study investigates a small Canadian school's initial attempt at promoting a “learning community” approach. The study also compares it to the ideals of collaborative teamwork set out by recent scholarship.

Metacognition (as a process) and metacognitive knowledge (as a product) are seen as important components of cognitive development and signs of intellectual maturity.The development of metacognitive knowledge is not, however, reserved for adult learners. The goal of this study was to examine what practices lead to successful self-reflection and promote metacognitive development in young learners.