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The purpose of this paper is to describe the variations in the ways that principals conceptualize their basis of power in schools.

Phenomenography was used as the research method of this study. The interviewees consisted of 16 principals, eight from public schools and eight from private schools.

The analysis of the interviews revealed eight ways of understanding a principal’s power basis. These potential power bases were: teachers’ sense of reciprocity; teachers’ sense of responsibility; organizational rules and regulations; principals’ deep knowledge and experience; in-service training; principals’ reputation for being fair and impartial; teachers’ sense of identification with their principal; and principals’ control over teachers’ employment. Participants from public and private schools held generally similar conceptions. The conception of in-service training remained limited to private school principals. The power basis of principals’ control over teachers’ employment was not emphasized but could still be perceived as a conception in certain statements by participants.

Coercive power and legitimate power of reciprocity need to be investigated more thoroughly in the field of educational administration.

There is an urgent need for training for principals to raise their awareness of the adverse effect that coercive power has on teachers.

This study is the first known to explore variations in the ways that principals conceptualize their power basis.

The purpose of this research is to understand reflective journalling in a first year Public Health practice unit.

This research uses pure phenomenography to interpret students’ descriptions of reflective journalling. Data were collected from 32 students enrolled in PUB215 Public Health Practice in the School of Public Health, Queensland University of Technology. Participants completed a brief open‐ended questionnaire to evaluate the first assessment item in this unit, a reflective journal. Questionnaire responses were analysed through Dahlgren and Fallsberg's seven phases of data analysis.

The reflective journal required students to reflect on lecture content from five of seven guest speakers. Participants’ responses were categorised into four conceptions: engagement in learning, depth of knowledge, understanding the process and doing the task. Participants describe reflective journalling as a conduit to think critically about the content of the guest speakers’ presentations. Other participants think journalling is a vehicle to think deeply about their potential career pathways. Some define journalling as a pragmatic operation where practical issues are difficult to navigate. The reflective journal successfully: engaged students’ learning, increased students’ depth of knowledge and deepened students’ understanding of the journalling process.

This research gives an insight into how first year public health students understand reflective journalling, supports educators in reflective journalling assessments and confirms a reflective journal assessment can move student reflection towards higher order thinking about practice.

The workplace is a context of increasing interest in information literacy research, if not necessarily the most visible (Cheuk, 2017). Several studies have described contextual, relationship-based experiences of this subjective, knowledge-development focussed phenomenon (Forster, 2017b). What research contexts and methods are likely to be most effective, especially in workplaces which contain professions of widely differing ontologies and epistemological realities? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An analysis and description of the value and validity of a “qualitative mixed methods” approach in which the thematic form of phenomenography is contextualised ethnographically.

This paper describes a new research design for investigation into information literacy in the workplace, and discusses key issues around sampling, data collection and analysis, suggesting solutions to predictable problems. Such an approach would be centred on thematic phenomenographic data from semi-structured interviews, contextualised by additional ethnographic methods of data collection. The latter’s findings are analysed in light of the interview data to contextualise that data and facilitate a workplace-wide analysis of information literacy and the information culture it creates.

Insights from recent research studies into information literacy in the workplace have suggested the possibility of an epistemologically justifiable, qualitative mixed methods design involving an ethnographic contextualisation of a thematic phenomenographic analysis of the information culture of an ontologically varied and complex workplace – with the potential for descriptive contextualisation, categorisation and generalisability.

Internet of things (IoT) promises advantages in different sectors, especially the health-care sector. Due to its capabilities for chronic disease management, IoT has attracted the attention of researchers. Nowadays, there is research that focuses on the use of IoT for chronic disease management. However, the use of IoT in various contexts faces different barriers. This paper aims to explore Iranian experts’ conceptions of the barriers to using IoT in Iran regarding its application for chronic disease management.

This study follows a phenomenographic method to investigate Iranian experts’ conceptions of the barriers to using IoT in Iran regarding its application for chronic disease management.

The results show that there are four categories of description (governance, technical, economic and social barriers) that vary among experts’ conceptions.

The findings of the present work could provide valuable insights for managers and policymakers who want to address IoT barriers.

The purpose of this paper is to present the possibilities offered by Lesson and Learning Studies (LLS) for training and for improving and generating knowledge by reconstructing the practical knowledge of teachers in university training through joint design, observation and reflection. In short, the research aims to show how merging LLS contributes to developing fundamental teaching skills in new, uncertain contexts and to recreating processes of research and analysis of complex situations from critical and creative perspectives by involving university teachers and student teachers in disciplined, informed reflection on their own practice through shared, narrative productions in a dual spiral which promotes the contrasting of experiences and perspectives in an ongoing manner.

A case study of own practice in a university master’s degree, the aim of which is to develop a training improvement process by following the stages of LLS.

The case study shows the need to reverse the theory-practice sequence and to increase the importance of experience, the relevance of tutoring in the role of teachers, and the significance of cooperation and contrast as learning strategies. The evidence presented shows that LLS can be an extremely useful resource and procedure to reconstruct practical knowledge, facilitating internal contrast between the different espoused theories of the members of the group of teachers, and also between their espoused theories and their practical knowledge, in other words their theories-in-use.

The paper explores the value of LLS to reconstruct the practical knowledge of university teachers.

This paper aims to explore the perceptions of teacher students regarding entrepreneurship education and how they understand entrepreneurship as part of their future pedagogical work.

Data were collected in 2010, 2011, and 2012 from the essays of 257 teacher students. The data were then analysed through a phenomenological approach.

On the basis of the results, we categorise teacher students into three types: sceptics, followers, and innovators.

The study was limited to teacher students at the Department of Teacher Education at Rauma. The data were collected during an Entrepreneurship and Citizenship course under the Teacher Education programme.

The most important and necessary requirement for developing entrepreneurship education for future teachers is to clearly define the aforementioned concept. A learning environment should enable teacher students to approach the topic in an informal manner, allowing them to comfortably compare different critical views. Further maximising the benefits of such an environment necessitates fostering a relaxed and encouraging learning atmosphere, as well as multi‐professional cooperation. The “leading extract” of entrepreneurship education must be based on education and pedagogy, instead of on market forces.

Early entrepreneurship research concentrates on what entrepreneurship means and includes, how it should be realised, and what the responses are to related educational initiatives. The current work focuses on the conclusions teacher students draw about entrepreneurship/enterprise education and what kind of entrepreneurship/enterprise education is presently a part of teacher education.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the contributions to the current issue.

The paper is intended to stimulate a discussion about the nature of lesson study (LS), its use in initial teacher education (ITE) and the role of learning theory in the design of the research lesson.

The term LS was first used to describe a Japanese LS. It was seen as career-long teacher-initiated collaborative professional development through which teachers researched lesson designs to teach problem-solving and develop independent thinking skills in their students. As it has been adopted across the world, it has been adapted. This raises questions about the form and effect of LS in its various forms, about the role of learning theory in the design of research lessons and about the appropriateness of introducing LS in programmes of ITE.

This editorial review provides an overview of the insights and issues identified by the authors in this issue of the journal.

The purpose of this paper is to inform on results of the study based on the dissertation project – the study of newcoming university students and their information literacy experience. It describes the three categories of information literacy experience as perceived by these students.

The document is based on a qualitative phenomenographic study of 40 first-year undergraduate students of teacher education programs from five faculties of Comenius University in Bratislava. Data were collected from each participant in two stages by three methods: written statements, drawings and interviews.

The phenomenographic analysis results in three categories of information literacy: (1) the conception of digital technologies, (2) the conception of knowledge and (3) the conception of truth. The outcome space presented by two alternative models points to a strong interrelation of all three categories. The resulting conceptions point to the diversity of the concept of information literacy in relation to other types of literacies, especially digital, reading and media literacy, as well as to intersections with other scientific disciplines such as psychology, cognitive science or philosophy.

The most important limits of this qualitative research are the low numbers of participants and the high degree of subjectivity in data evaluation. For this reason, a verification study was carried out one-year later.

Although phenomenographic studies of information literacy in the educational context are quite common, the third category of this study brings a new contribution to the information literacy theory – the dimension of truth or truthfulness of information.