Search results

Structural equation modelling (SEM) is becoming a popular technique for analysis and is increasingly being used within emergency services and disaster research. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of SEM to familiarise emergency service and disaster researchers with the technique.

Following a general overview of SEM, including its advantages in relation to other techniques and details of how it should be conducted, current issues surrounding model fit will be discussed.

SEM is a highly flexible tool, which has many advantages over other techniques. It has become a much more accessible method of analysis in recent years due to software advancements, providing the potential to produce high-quality research when applied correctly.

To date SEM has already revealed findings of importance within this field, however, the production of valid and reliable research is dependent upon its correct application. It is hoped that this overview will encourage the use of SEM within emergency service and disaster research in order to provide new insights and enhance public safety and resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Student Transitions and Experiences (STEP) project, in which visual and creative research methodologies were used to enhance student engagement.

The article provides an overview of three main strands within the field of student engagement practice, and explores the STEP project as an instance of the “critical‐transformative” strand. The article draws on recent theorizations by Kemmis et al. of practice architectures and ecologies of practice to propose an understanding of the STEP project as a practice “niche”.

In thinking through some implications of student engagement as a practice architecture, the article sheds analytical light on student engagement as a specific and complex form of contemporary education practice. The later part of the article focuses on a consideration of phronesis and praxis in specific instances from the STEP project. Working with concepts from Barad, the article develops a conceptualization of the STEP project as an intra‐active, entangled situated and particularistic practice of phronesis‐praxis.

This article aims to contribute to the development of theoretical and empirical understandings of the field of student engagement. It does so by providing insights into a recent empirical study; by developing some new theorisations of student engagement; and by a detailed exploration of specific instances of student engagement practice.