Editorial 22(3)

As another successful IIER year comes to a close, we are pleased to publish the last issue of volume 22. This issue marks a positive change indicative of the recent extent of journal activity in bringing our readers eight articles from four continents of the world. In reviewing the year of IIER, I am delighted to draw attention to the added international interest and consequential increase in high quality submissions of manuscripts to IIER, and advise all new members of the Institutes for Educational Research and intending authors to continue supporting the journal by recommending it to your colleagues. Our new international exposure has had a welcome effect on the distribution statistics of our journal.

I wish then, to take this end of year opportunity to sincerely thank the members of the Editorial Board, and not least our publisher Clare McBeath and website manager Roger Atkinson for their tireless support of the IIER. This year has seen changes on the editorial team and I wish to cordially extend a welcome on board to Associate Professor Anne Power of the NSW Institute for Educational Research, for accepting the role of Associate Editor on September 1, and to Associate Professor John Buchanan, President of the NSWIER, for joining the team of Assisting Editors. I wish to express sincere thanks to our previous Associate Editor, Dr Eva Dobozy for her contribution to the journal over the years and wish her all the best in her future scholarly career.

I am particularly pleased to announce a new international member of our Editorial Board: Dr Ewald Kiel, Professor of School Research, and Director of the Department of School and Teaching Research, at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and current Co-Editor of the Jahrbuch für allgemeine Didaktik (Yearbook of General Didactics). Professor Kiel brings to the IIER his expertise in general didactics, instructional design, including intercultural didactic design, teacher professionalisation, especially in coping strategies, stress, development of a professional self in the context of a person environment model, and issues of assessment of professional competencies. We extend a warm welcome to Professor Kiel and look forward to our future editing collaboration.

Needless to say, without the voluntary efforts of our reviewers, the transformation of manuscripts into published articles would not come about seamlessly. In recognition of the contribution our reviewers bring to the journal, we publish their names in the last issue each year. Please find the names of the 2012 reviewers at: http://www.iier.org.au/about/reviewers-current.html

Sadly, this year has witnessed the passing away of a great scholar, and Editor of the IIER in 1992. We take a moment to remember Professor Alison Lee, and her important contribution to educational research, the NSWIER and IIER. Professor Lee passed away in September after a short period of illness, and is deeply missed by her colleagues.

I turn now to the current issue, that begins by presenting an article from Israel written by Esther Aflalo which argues for increasing diversity in approaches to learning. The article challenges traditional and "ultraorthodox" study practices of Yeshiva in an all male educational setting. Aflalo provides evidence for multifaceted approaches to learning that support different characteristics of intelligence, using a methodology comparing linear and multi-directional learning approaches that are conducted within two distinct learning groups with student learning strengths. We remain on the topic of learning and teaching approaches in the second article by Angelito Calma and Mark Eggins. In the context of peer connected tutor training within the field of business education, the authors provide a case of pedagogical quality enhancement by demonstrating that university tutors "have a critical role in student learning and that learning from their peers can play a big part in this process".

In the third article, Eva Dobozy takes up the issue of professional development among university educators by introducing a social constructivist approach to collaborative activities as an alternative to the traditional conference model. The fourth article by Asnat Dor and Brooke Rucker-Naidu turns our attention to school-home partnership issues and intercultural differences in teachers' perceptions of family involvement. The authors' international comparative analysis between schools in Israel and the USA locates similarities in the ways in which teachers report themselves approaching the issue of parental involvement in both countries, but find slightly more reluctance among the teachers in Israel to initiate active engagement with parents, particularly where teacher confidence is experienced as being low. In the fifth article, Rachael Hains-Wesson introduces work-integrated learning concepts in the context of student writing and calls for further explicit embedding of such content into the learning curricula in the field of creative arts.

Kuchah Kuchah and Annamaria Pinter in the sixth article bring to light an African example of the movement of the new sociology of childhood. By focusing on the lack of this movement in the area of second language education, the authors report on the ethical nature of interviewer relations to child-interviewees by way of building trust and confidence, and thereby influencing the quality of the research study. The seventh article, by Erin Mackenzie, Anne McMaugh and Kerry-Ann O'Sullivan is concerned with the issue of stress caused by the transition from primary to secondary level of education in a sample of Australian female school students. Drawing on Lazarus & Folkman's (1984) cognitive-transactional theory of stress, the authors provide implications for the developing of school transition programs to prevent stress. The last article in issue 22(3) is authored by Angela Page and Lisa Smith and is set in New Zealand. The authors present an examination on the issue of social dominance prevalent among adolescent girls and interestingly, report that younger adolescent girls are more likely to accept relationally aggressive behaviours in the classroom than older girls. The authors present a model of collaborative strategies and initiatives in the prevention of relational aggression among young girls.

I hope that the selection of articles in this issue provides stimulating reading, if not over the Season's holidays, then perhaps in the fast approaching New Year.

Meeri Hellstén
Editor in Chief

Please cite as: Hellstén, M. (2012). Editorial 22(3). Issues In Educational Research, 22(3), ii-iii. http://www.iier.org.au/iier22/editorial22-3.html