Overview

This edited collection describes the unfinished business of learning that all of us engage in as members of a community of research practice. Written by a cohort of higher degree students and early career researchers in one university in Australia, the chapters make visible the processes and practices through which the daily work of 'performing educational research' is done, with all the pleasure and pain that such learning and doing entails.

Table of Contents

Preamble - Erica McWilliam, Susan Danby and John Knight
Introduction - Performing Research - Erica McWilliam
Acknowledgements

PART ONE: NEGOTIATING METHODS

1. Performing Focus Groups: Unsettling 'Blueprints'
   Clare Christensen and Angela Dwyer
2. Writing An Action Research Thesis: One Researcher's Resolution of the Problematic of Form and Process
   Julie Davis
3. Reconceptualizing Research Questions: A Lifeworld and Systems World Link with Theory and Practice
   Mary Keeffe
4. Art Meets Education: Is there Space on the Verandah?
   Felicity McArdle
5. Synchronous Computer-Mediated Chat And Conversation Analysis: A Methodological Critique for Beginning Researchers
   Danielle Lawson-Walther

PART TWO NEGOTAIATING METHODS

1. School Victims: An Analysis Of "My Worst Experience in School' Scale
   Marilyn A. Campbell
2. The Dimensions Of Teacher Commitment: The Different Ways in which Teachers Conceptualise and Practice their Commitment
   Leanne Crosswell
3. Promising Virtues In The Virtual Classroom: Metaphors on Trail
   Catherine Doherty
4. Adapting Mainstream Pedagogy for Chinese ESL Students In Secondary School Classrooms
   Karen Dooley
5. Teacher Communications, Student Identity And Classroom Participations: 'I belonged in a way that no one understood anything that we were learning'
   Bronwyn Ewing
6. Vertical Timetabling In Year 4 Mathematics: Teachers' Perceptions and Reflections on Practice
   Matthew Harrison and James J. Watters
7. Tugging On Superman's Cape: Heroism in Children's Literature Post 9/11
   Joanne Lampert
8. Per(Form)ed Upon Or Performing? Agentic Professionalism and Socially-just Pedagogies
   Jennifer Nayler
9. What Counts As Literacy Practices For Year 10 English Lessons: One Teacher's Interview Account of Her Teaching Practice
   Helen Nicolson and Susan Danby
10. The Origins Of Pre-Service Primary Education Students' Anxieties And Negative Feelings About Mathematics
    Liisa Uusimaki and Rod Nason
11. Enhancements of Learning In Decision Making And Negotiation Skills With In A Virtual Reality Environment
    Ros A. Yahaya, Terry Euler and Meredith Godat
12. Knowledge Construction of 3D Geometry Concepts and Processes Within A Virtual Reality Learning Environment
    Andy Yeh and Rod Nason

PART THREE: NEGOTIATING POLICY

1. An Analysis Of Current Reform Agendas In Preservice Teacher Education in Queensland
   Julie Ballantyne
2. Naughty, Needy Or Neither: Suspension, Exclusion and the Beliefs of Primary School Educators
   Judith Howard
3. Lenses and Lessons In Phenomenographic Research For Public Policy In Early Childhood Education And Care
   Susan Irvine, Collette Tayler, Ann Farrell
4. Adult Learners in Malaysia: Some Issues to Consider
   Po Li Tan, Hitendra Pillay and Fiona Spencer

PART FOUR: NEGOTIATING PARTNERS/RELATIONSHIPS

1. Investing In Early Childhood: Creating a Community of Care for children and Families
   Alison Black
2. A Critical Approach To Collaborating With Students As Researchers
   Derek Bland and Bill Atweh
3. Negotiating Twinship, Friendship And The Transition From Home To School
   Lynette Ewing
4. Indonesian EFL Curricula: What Content Knowledge Demands do they make of Australian Teachers?
   Beryl Exley
5. School-University Partnerships: The Interactional Work of the Principal in Meetings
   Graeme Hall and Susan Danby
6. Leadership In Early Childhood Education And Care: 'It's not about being the Boss'
   Louise hard, Collette Tayler and Susan Danby
7. An Even Better Start? Generating Parent Views of the Preparatory Year using a Phenomenographic Approach
   Lyndal O'Gorman, Ann Farrell and Kerryann Walsh
8. Innovating For The Knowledge Economy: The Potential for Learning Partnership Strategies
   Heather Peirce
9. A Critic's Review of Educational Research
   Susan Danby