The telling of stories lies at the heart of human communication. In this important new book Peter Brophy introduces and explains the concept of story-telling or narrative-based practice in teaching, research, professional practice and organizations. He illustrates the deficiencies in evidence-based practice models, which focus on quantitative rather than qualitative evidence, and highlights the importance of narrative by drawing on insights from fields as disparate as pedagogy, anthropolog...

The average young adult in the US reads for about 7 minutes a day and the figure isnt much higher in Britain. The last few decades have seen striking and nearly continuous falls in the amount of time individuals spend with books and other printed material. And perhaps as a result the average level of literacy in the British and US populations is declining: our ability to comprehend complex writing long words or sophisticated expressions is less than it was a few decades ago. Very surprisin...

This volume analyzes different types of knowledge and know-how used by practising professionals in their work and how these different kinds of knowledge are acquired by a combination of learning from books, learning from people and learning from personal experience.; Drawing on various examples, problems addressed include the way theory changes and is personalized in practice, and how individuals form generalizations out of their practice. Eraut considers the meaning of client-centredness ...

Student academic writing is at the heart of teaching and learning in higher education. Students are assessed largely by what they write, and need to learn both general academic conventions as well as disciplinary writing requirements in order to be successful in higher education.Teaching Academic Writing is a 'toolkit' designed to help higher education lecturers and tutors teach writing to their students. Containing a range of diverse teaching strategies, the book offers bo...

Using Narrative in Research by Christine Bold provides an accessible, easy-to-understand guide to the theory and practice of the use of narrative in research. Written with those new to narrative in mind, this book will enable readers to understand the origins of narrative traditions and to plan and carry out a narrative study of their own.Christine Bold′s book examines narrative approaches across a range of research contexts and disciplinary boundaries and will be of equal value to...

Ethnomethodology has an elusive relationship with organisation studies. The ethnomethodological work of Harold Garfinkel, and the allied conversation analytic work of Harvey Sacks, is often cited and yet empirical contributions informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis remain rare. Organisation studies clearly has a lot to say about work but this is normally related to some broader set of social, economic and political issues. Rarely, if ever, does this research involve an ana...

Many practice-based researchers have expert knowledge of doing research but often experience difficulties when writing it up and communicating the significance of what they have done. This book aims to help bridge the gap. Packed with practical advice and strong theoretical resources it takes you through the basics of designing and producing your text so that it will meet established standards and high quality assurance expectations.Divided into 3 distinctive parts, key points incl...

This book is for students who have learnt English as a second (or third, or fourth) language, and are studying at an institution where English is the medium of instruction.Each of its 10 chapters focuses on a reproduced academic article on an aspect of English for academic purposes - students can therefore learn about language skills from the articles themselves as well as developing those skills in the activities and tasks which follow.Each chapter develops six strands of ...

Social work agencies want newly-qualified workers who can practice as highly motivated and self-flourishing professionals. To get to this stage, social work degree students need to be critical, analytical and evaluative in their thinking, reading and writing. And while lecturers may highlight this need when marking assignments, there is limited space to explore these topics within an already tight social work curriculum. This revised second edition helps to tackle this problem and goes to ...

First Published in 2004. This book addresses one of the most basic but problematic questions in education- what do teachers do? After reviewing various paradigms of teaching- as common sense, art, craft, competence and so on- Squires goes onto to develop a theory of professional disciplines based on three common characteristics: instrumentality, contingency and procedural. He then uses this to construct a detailed a model for the analysis of teaching, both at the level of the course and th...

From choosing a supervisor and topic to staying motivated, completing a research thesis is not an easy matter. Each stage represents a different challenge and many students struggle through without identifying the skills needed to make the most of their time.This wonderful resource for all doctoral and masters level students, explores the challenges and complexities of successfully engaging in the research process and thesis writing. Chapters include:choosing and work...

′This structured and accessible book, with excellent case studies, will give confidence to anyone embarking on an action research project′-Professor Ken Jones, Dean of Humanities, Swansea Metropolitan University′Masterly in its lucidity, this text contextualises Action Research in the fiedl of Education Practice; and is therefore a valuable resource in both professional learning and improved professional practice′-Effie Maclellan, Research Pro...