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The purpose of this paper is to articulate criteria for assessing the quality of lesson and learning studies as forms of practice-based educational action research that are grounded in the practical experience of those engaged in such research.

The paper explores the implications of Stake and Schwandt’s distinction between quality as measured and quality as experienced for assessing lesson and learning studies in higher education contexts, where “standards templates” are increasingly used to measure “quality”. Such templates it is claimed distance research from the action context of teachers’ work. Previously published work, in which the author distils criteria for good educational action research from his own narratives of experience, is then summarised as a basis for conceptualising lesson study as good action research. This poses the issue of whether the use of learning theories to inform lesson study distorts their quality by distancing them from action. The author argues that this does not apply to lesson studies that are informed by Marton and Booth’s theory of variation. In doing so he distils a set of experience-based quality criteria for assessing learning studies, and demonstrates a high degree of congruence between the pedagogical implications of variation theory and Stenhouse’s idea of “teachers as researchers”.

A set of experience-based quality criteria are distilled for assessing what counts as a high-quality learning study report.

The paper creates an alternative view of the relationship between educational research and practice to that which currently dominates academic discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to pull together articles published in the journal over the last five years in terms of their relevance to the main themes and issues that have shaped its development.

The idea is that the paper enables teachers and researchers in schools and higher education institutions to access a substantial and unique collection of lesson and learning studies, and articles about the theoretical and methodological issues they raise, in the context of a rapidly globalising phenomenon.

The paper sets a framework for evaluating the growth and development of lesson studies as a form of practice-based teacher research.

This paper, authored by the founding chief editor of the IJLLS, establishes conceptual links between the theory and practice of lesson study and the wider field of practice-based pedagogical research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss experiences, in terms of challenges and opportunities, of teacher-researchers who engage in research on the learning study approach. The following two questions will be addressed: how can the teaching experience influence, and become an asset, in the research process and what challenges do teachers face when they enter the research practice?

Each question will be explored through some empirically grounded themes. The analysis is based on experiences from participation in a PhD program, where learning study was used as a method and variation theory was the main theoretical framework. One learning study was focusing on creative writing in primary school and the other was focusing on historical primary source analysis in upper secondary school.

The first question is addressed through the following themes: choosing and identifying research problems; planning and conducting research lessons; analyzing research lessons and students’ learning; and process of self-reflection, and the second question through: teaching as an object of research; to use and develop theories; and communication and review in research. The findings indicate that learning study is a practice-based research approach where teaching experience and academic skills are intertwined in many ways. Both approaches bring opportunities as well as challenges.

The paper is expected to contribute insights and knowledge about the advantages, as well as hindrances to overcome, for teacher-researchers who use learning study as a research method. The results can also be related to the performing of action research in teachers’ classroom practice.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: to introduce a practice-based framework designed to integrate and deepen our understanding of how individuals co-create service experience practices; to identify co-creating service experience practices; and to provide a compelling agenda for future research, and offer practical strategies to enhance co-created service experiences. Accordingly, we extend practice theory, building on Kjellberg and Helgesson’s (2006) practice-based framework for markets by integrating Holt’s (1995) consumer practices and social capital-based practices (Gittell and Vidal, 1998; Woolcock, 2001).

The authors interpretive analysis draws on naturalistic observations carried out over 18 months, supplemented with 35 interviews (17 with residents, and 18 with staff) and a diary study of nine non-management staff (including nursing staff, kitchen and cleaning staff and administrative staff) at a residential aged care facility.

This paper offers a new conceptualization of service experience. Rather than viewing service experiences as dyadic, designed and produced by the firm for the customer, the authors conceptualize service experience as dynamic, experiential, relational activities and interactions, thus highlighting the collective, collaborative, evolving and dynamic nature of service experience.

Building on McColl-Kennedy et al.’s (2012) foundational work, the authors articulate three distinct types of practices that characterize service experiences. We extend practice theory offering an integrative practice-based framework consistent with our practice-based conceptualization of service experience. Based on the service ecosystem metaphor and drawing parallels and contrasts with an ant colony, the authors provide a co-created service experience practices (CSEP) framework comprising: representational practices – assimilating, producing and personalizing; normalizing practices – bonding, bridging and linking; and exchange practices – accounting (searching and selecting), evaluating (sorting and assorting), appreciating, classifying (displaying objects and demonstrating collective action, and play (communing and entertaining). Our CSEP framework integrates three theoretical frameworks, that of Kjellberg and Helgesson’s (2006) market practices framework, Holt’s (1995) consumer practices and social capital-based practices (Gittell and Vidal, 1998; Woolcock, 2001), to yield a deeper explanation of co-created service experience practices.

It is clear from our observations, interviews with residents and staff, and from the diary study, that customers co-create service experiences in many different ways, each contextually determined. In some cases the customers are well equipped with a wide array of resources, integrated from exchanges with other customers, staff, friends and family and from their own resources. In other cases, however, few resources are integrated from few sources. Importantly, the authors found that some staff are willing and able to offer an extensive range of resources designed to complement the customers’ own resources to help facilitate the service experience. We offer a seven-point practical plan designed to enhance service experiences.

The authors work contributes theoretically and practically in four important ways. First, the authors provide a critical analysis of prior service experience conceptualizations. Second, consistent with the conceptualization that service experiences are dynamic, experiential, relational activities and interactions developed with the customer and potentially other actors, including for example, other customers, organizations, and friends and family, we draw parallels and contrasts with a biological ecosystem and offer a co-created service experience practices (CSEP) framework designed to integrate and deepen the understanding of co-created service experiences and extend practice theory. Third, the authors provide managerial implications, including a seven-point practical plan. Finally, the authors offer a research agenda to assist further theory development.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual viewpoint which proposes the use of the post graduate Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) approach to learning in undergraduate education and practice‐based training.

This is an examination of the KTP approach and how this could be used effectively in undergraduate education and training to encourage and increase practice‐based learning and employer engagement. The methodology consists of a literature review, and a case study of the KTP approach. The literature reviewed examines the KTP approach, employer engagement in education and strategic government approaches to stimulate investment in knowledge and skills for workforce development, and the development of practice‐based learning in the UK. The KTP provides a case study to illustrate a successful model of employer engagement, which benefits all parties to it, and assists with the strategic development required by successive governments.

The suggestions are based on the authors’ investigation and their understanding and experience of: the KTP approach; practice‐based learning; undergraduate education; and learning and teaching approaches. The paper suggests that the KTP approach (normally a post‐graduate model) could be extended to undergraduate education to provide sustainable practice‐based learning that fits well with the strategies and ideologies of government, employers and academia.

Barriers to employer and academic engagement, such as that linked to the confused terminology used to describe practice‐based learning, and competing political ideologies, should be researched further to gain a better understanding of how to mitigate these in order to make the KTP approach in undergraduate education successful. The implications are that synergistic development of the KTP approach in an increased range of academic and workplace partnerships needs to be done before a fully tested model could be agreed.

The originality is the idea of utilising a well acknowledged post‐graduate model of learning within an undergraduate environment. The value is to increase the awareness of the benefits of the KTP and how the approach could be adapted for use in undergraduate environments for the eventual benefit of students, academics, employers and policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the discussion about practitioner research in schools – by addressing mechanisms and systematic strategies based on theory in a research model, which enables the creation of knowledge products that enhance student learning and are sharable between teachers.

The research question is the following: Can a specific form of teachers’ research produce practice-based knowledge relevant beyond the borders of the local school context? This question is addressed through empirical examples from previously published papers on learning studies in natural sciences, mathematics and language.

This paper promotes the view that teachers in learning studies can create practical public knowledge relevant beyond their local context. The authors suggest that learning studies and variation theory can offer teachers mechanisms to create such public knowledge.

The paper proposes that teachers’ collaboration in professional learning communities, as in a learning study, not only has the capacity to increase students’ and teachers’ learning, but it can also be used to create practical public knowledge.

This paper compares and contrasts practice-based perceptions of the research–practice gap in the United States (US) with those in Australia.

The current study extends the work of Tucker and Lowe (2014) by comparing and contrasting their Australian-based findings with evidence from a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with senior representatives of 18 US state and national professional accounting associations.

The extent to which academic research informs practice is perceived to be limited, despite the potential for academic research findings to make a significant contribution to management accounting practice. We find similarities as well as differences in the major obstacles to closer engagement in the US and Australia. This comparison, however, leads us to offer a more fundamental explanation of the divide between academic research and practice framed in terms of the relative benefits and costs of academics engaging with practice.

Rather than following conventional approaches to ‘bridging the gap’ by identifying barriers to the adoption of research, we suggest that only after academics have adequate incentives to speak to practice can barriers to a more effective diffusion of their research findings be surmounted.

This study makes three novel contributions to the “relevance literature” in management accounting. First, it adopts a distinct theoretical vantage point to organize, analyze, and interpret empirical evidence. Second, it captures practice-based views about the nature and extent of the divide between research and practice. Third, it provides a foundational assessment of the generalizability of the gap by examining perceptions of it across two different geographic contexts.

The chapter evaluates the value of practice-based teaching and learning on a UK postgraduate unit and describes the development of conceptual models for the student practice-based experience.

Student experience is explored through the use of an in-depth case study. Student understanding is explored through an exit survey of students.

Student experience of the unit was positive and negative. Positive experiences stem from good client communications, a motivated student team, and the buzz of a real project. Positive experiences appear to lead to a perception of pride in outcomes and personal transferrable skills. Negative experiences stem from the lack of life experience, language difficulties, client unavailability, lack of subject knowledge, and literature gaps which left students feeling ill-equipped to deal with the international group context. Negative experiences lead to stress and poor group development.

The study is based on a single simple case. The methodology has sought to reduce problems with internal validity and bias. The data collection and analysis methods are repeatable and we encourage other academics to test our conceptual models and conclusions.

Conceptual models for positive and negative experience are proposed.

The study suggests there is a balance to be sought between providing a positive student experience and practical learning. Practice-based learning adds significant value to the student in terms of improved understanding of hard and soft tools, but may need to be based upon positive and negative experience.

Situated within the recent scholarship on core practices in teacher education, this chapter presents a collaborative self-study that explored one aspect of our developing practice as teacher educators through examination of Francis’s use of mediation in lesson rehearsal. Using examples from his practice, we explore the following research question: How does a teacher educator learn to provide mediation to create a responsive zone of proximal development within lesson rehearsal?

Specifically, we use Vygotskian sociocultural theory to examine Francis’s use of mediation during the rehearsal of the core practice supporting interaction and target language comprehensibility (I-TLC), one of the core practices addressed in his world language teacher preparation program. This self-study of mediation in lesson rehearsal illuminated Francis’ evolving practice as a facilitator of lesson rehearsal of novice teachers who are culturally and linguistically diverse, and who are preparing to use practices that are responsive to culturally and linguistically diverse students.

This paper describes and discusses aspects that affect research questions in a practice-based research study, where learning study is used as a framework. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understanding of the process where teachers and a researcher collaborate in transforming practical teaching problems into research questions.

A case study is conducted. Data consist of field notes, logbooks, manuscripts and conference papers from two learning studies conducted in grade 4 by three teachers and one researcher, and notes from meetings in a subject-teacher group at the school. The analysis focuses on how the research questions emerge and change in relation to discussions among teachers and in the research group of teaching, previous research and learning theory.

Questions about students’ discernment of the structure in the base-ten system emerged in learning study 1 and in the subject-teacher group. Discussions of previous research and the didactical theory learning activity transformed the research questions in learning study 2, into focusing students’ theoretical knowledge, examining general structures in the base system, using learning models as tools. Conditions for identification of specific teaching problems and alternative theory in a learning study are discussed.

The explicit example where research questions are transformed can be used in further discussions and methodological questions regarding formulation of research questions in educational research. Discussions, specifically of transforming research questions, when learning study is used may be promoted.