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Today’s digital and mobile learning environment has contributed to the increased availability of and interest in e-textbooks, and many school systems are conducting trials to evaluate their effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze instructors’ levels of use (LoU) of e-textbook features and innovations at a southeastern US community college. This study also evaluated the effectiveness of e-textbooks compared to paper textbooks on student achievement during a pilot period of e-textbook implementation.

Using a survey research design, the LoU of the Innovation framework was applied to identify and analyze instructors’ LoU rankings for eight e-textbook features. The study also used historical data on student demographics and final course grades to evaluate student achievement between text formats. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to answer the research questions.

Results showed that e-textbook features were used at a low to non-existent level by instructors and that there was no significant difference in grade average between text formats among students. However, interactions between text format, age and gender were found.

This study added to the body of knowledge regarding e-textbook efficacy. While many studies stop with the conclusion that there is no difference in student outcomes between text formats, this study addressed a gap in literature on how to improve student performance with e-textbook technology by using the LoU of an innovation framework.

This research study explores the perceptions of the importance and meaning of innovation in education by qualified teachers. The authors deliberately selected geography teachers for the research because the extraordinary dynamics of changes and innovations the teacher has to deal with are significantly reflected, particularly in geography teaching.

The main aim of the research was to determine geography teachers' views on the importance, role and meaning of innovation in teaching. The research group consisted of 12 qualified teachers, and a semistructured interview was chosen as the research method. The research was conducted over six months, from October 2020 to March 2021.

This research confirmed the interest in introducing innovations into teaching by the teachers interviewed. Teachers mainly think of innovation as new ways of teaching that aim to revive and make teaching more attractive, to increase the motivation of all actors in the learning process. While teachers with more ample teaching experience connect innovations mainly with presentations, education games, and excursions, teachers-beginners and teachers with shorter teaching experience understand innovations mainly as the application of new trends in education, such as research projects and working with GIS and digital technologies. The research confirmed that lectures supported by presentations are the most frequently used teaching method for explaining the geography curriculum in primary and secondary schools. Presentations in which teachers focus on linking relationships and explaining connections more deeply replace existing textbooks and teaching texts for most teachers interviewed.

The number and qualifications of the teachers involved in the research.

Teachers see the quality of the school environment and the education system as the significant barriers to providing better geography education. They often come to innovations through their own study and activities and feel a significant lack of available materials for the practical application of innovations in teaching. They also perceive the support for creation by state authorities and educational institutions as insufficient. Most teachers interviewed would welcome regular training courses and vocational education on the appropriate introduction and use of innovations in the classrooms in the form of practical examples and developed methodologies.

The selection of teachers for the research was deliberate and included active teachers of both genders working in primary and secondary schools. The selected teachers had varying teaching experiences and studied different combinations of teaching subjects with geography.

This paper discusses the challenges that two doctoral researchers faced while researching religious minorities and women in a culturally sensitive society such as Pakistan. Their shared interest in sensitive topics related to gender and minorities in Pakistan led both researchers to collaborate in this study to provide a better understanding of issues in qualitative research in the same research context. They discuss the challenges of interviewing participants within the educational context. They also suggest some ways to overcome such challenges.

Based on Foucualt's writings on regimes of truth, discourse and systems of exclusion, the authors in this study analyze how patriarchal and faith-based regimes of truth constrain some discourses that affect participants’ willingness and insights to reflect on the issues freely.

While reflecting on their experiences in data collection, authors report that qualitative researchers struggle to access participants to investigate issues related to gender subjectivities and minority faiths in educational contexts in developing societies like Pakistan. Researchers face a variety of problems, from their own positionality to participants’ access to their responses. The reason for this is patriarchal and religious regimes and also their intersecting relations that restrict participants’ ability to reflect on their issues. Minorities in Pakistan are often prevented from expressing their views freely by blasphemy fears. The discourses of gender are also sensitive. Therefore, the study suggests that in societies such as Pakistan, where religion and gender are emotive terms, the problem can be handled by counter-discourses that challenge truth regimes by conceiving research as a transformative practice. Moreover, such societies require a policy for protecting researchers and participants in the interest of knowledge production and dissemination.

This study is originally based on the primary data used in two doctoral studies.