Complete Issue

Abstract

The articles in this issue of Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice feature innovative educational inquiries that are designed to explore answers to sets of problems that if better understood stand to improve the quality of educational experiences for both students and educators. For example, a theme consistent across the articles is commitment to sustained research inquiry. Albeit within a broad range of educational contexts. Nonetheless these research articles make known the fact that the educational issue they each tackle requires sustained inquiry to arrive at meaningful discovery that makes a difference.In their coauthored article, Savage and DiBiase highlight the negative psychosocial outcomes highly relationally aggressive female middle school students, so-called 'mean girls', face. Using a multistage statistical clustering procedure, the researchers identified a group of highly, yet almost exclusively, relationally aggressive female students. They then compared this group of students to a matched group of non-aggressive female students on a variety of behavioural, social, psychological and personality variables. The authors report that high levels of relational aggression in these female students, even in the absence of physical and verbal aggression, are correlated with numerous maladaptive behaviours, personality patterns and social functioning deficits. Savage and DiBiase discuss the possible interventions for this group of young women but caution a condition that should be met includes recognition on the part of the individual that the intervention is in their best interest. The implications of their research include a call for longitudinal studies to begin in early childhood and continue to adulthood to give an accurate picture regarding the stability of high levels of relational aggression.According to Lock et al, in the second article of this Brock Education Journal issue, coteaching holds many positive benefits for instructors in higher education. Supported by institutional funding for research design based on the Scholarship of Teaching Learning (SoTL) the team of instructors documented their investigation of coteaching a 'Nurse as Educator' course, over a period of two years. The notion was the instructors were to model their coteaching practices so nursing students could apply that understanding to their own co-teaching assignment. The train the trainer approach held possibilities for nursing instructors to grow professionally through critical dialogue with their colleagues regarding their own teaching practice. As the coauthors argue, "the strength of co-teaching informs educators' understanding of their own teaching practice and fosters a rediscovery of their passion for teaching." The inquiry produced four recommendations for practice and two implications for educational development and administration.In their coauthored contribution, featured as the third article, Portelance, Caron and Martineau examine collaboration between student teacher trainers, the cooperati...