Introduction to Vol. 10 No. 1 (2022)

Dear reader,

The current issue of Frontline Learning Research presents pioneering research in terms of both methodological innovation and novel focus areas of research, with two articles investigating development of individual understandings and two articles exploring aspects of collaboration.

Maag Merki and colleagues introduced a new method to investigate teachers’ collaboration, namely time-sampling with an online practice log. This allowed data to be collected that showed that teachers’ collaborative activities varied significantly between weekdays, showing a linear decrease from Monday to Friday, regardless of the content of collaboration. Furthermore, collaborative activities that focused on school subject-specific tasks varied with teachers’ leadership role and gender.

Nyberg and colleagues researched the significance of self-efficacy for the learning of scientific reasoning in primary (Grade 4) and lower secondary (Grade 8) school. At both grade levels, they found correlations for task-specific self-efficacy. However, correlational patterns differed between the grade levels: The largest cluster in Grade 4 comprised children who significantly overestimated their performance in scientific reasoning. In contrast, the largest cluster in Grade 8 comprised students with a realistic estimate of their performance.

The research of Jones and colleagues focused on interpersonal affect in groupwork. In a comparative case-study of two groups of first-year university students, they document the pervasive nature of interpersonal affect as enacted through everyday behavior. They trace the evolution over time of the group dynamics of both groups, one negative and dysfunctional, the other positive and collaborative.

Wolgast and Barnes-Holmes performed two studies of flexible spatial and temporal social perspective taking, one with undergraduate students and one with teacher education students. Focus was on how contextual cues affect such social perspective taking. With an outset in behavioral psychology, they employed the relational frame theory to a within-subject design and analyzed data by Rasch-tree and general linear modeling.

As a final remark, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Thomas Martens for his great work as the previous Editor-in-Chief of Frontline Learning Research and to both him and the rest of the FLR team for the smooth process of handing over the role to me. I am thrilled to be the new Editor-in-Chief and look forward to the collaboration with all editors and authors.

 

Best wishes,
Prof. Dr. Nina B. Dohn
Editor-In-Chief Frontline Learning Research