PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the field of learning, learning style, meta‐cognition, strategies and teaching by classifying different levels of the learning process. The paper aims to present an attempt to identify how students' awareness of learning style and teachers' matched instruction might affect students' learning and motivation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a conceptual paper in which a theoretical framework built on empirical research was identified by connecting and systemizing different parts of the learning process.FindingsThe paper finds that teaching based on individual learning styles is an effective way to ensure students' achievement and motivation. Awareness of learning styles, it is argued, influences meta‐cognition and choice of relevant learning strategies. Consciousness of own improvement provides students with new perspectives of their learning potential. Such positive academic experiences may enhance self‐efficacy.Originality/valueThe paper provides useful information on unraveling concepts, methods and effects which can aid students, teachers and researchers in understanding, evaluating and monitoring learning, thus having practical implications for promoting lifelong learning, self‐efficacy and salutogenesis.

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The teaching profession has been continually challenged to provide evidence of the effectiveness of teaching and learning methods. Teacher education, as well as nursing education, is currently undergoing reforms in Sweden. At the university where the research was conducted, teaching and nursing programs are two priority educational programs and maybe knowledge of learning styles can improve the quality of these programs. The purpose of this research was to examine the learning style preferences for two student groups, teachers and nurses, to analyze their differences in light of international research on learning styles. The study involved 78 teaching students and 78 nursing students. Twenty subscales of the Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1984;1991; were used to identify the participants' learning style preferences. The results showed statistically significant differences between the two student groups. In comparison to teaching students, more nursing students were highly motivated, kinesthetic, and preferred authorities. More teaching students were highly persistent. The findings suggest the need for widely diverse teaching approaches and conscious didactic action skills in higher education, as well as implementation of learning strategies for students.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse how leisure-time teachers perceive learning environments in general and especially the premises at Swedish leisure-time centres. Data are based on a national, comprehensive survey of all leisure-time teachers' perceptions. The theoretical framework is based on research on leisure-time centres and learning environments. The methodological approach involves both a descriptive statistical analysis and a qualitative content analysis. The results show a fragmented and paradoxical picture in terms of learning environments at leisure-time centres. On the one hand, the physical environment is characterised by small rooms, in some cases outdated and not suited for the purpose, to large groups of students and, in many cases, shared premises with the school. On the other hand, a majority of the staff say that learning environments are actively used to teach children social skills, how to establish good relations, friendship and equality. Parents' and children's opportunities to influence these learning environments are not regarded as a high priority.The main conclusion of the study is that activities housed in the school context and on its terms face congestion and many of these physical learning environments are in need of major improvements, especially considering all the policy documents and research on good learning environments. For Nordic educational research, this is an extremely important knowledge supplement since this field lacks ample research. For activities at leisure-time centres, these results have implications for policy decisions and educational development.

E D U C AT I O N I NQ U I RYEducation Inquiry is an international on-line, peer-reviewed journal with free access in the field of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education. It publishes original empirical and theoretical studies from a wide variety of academic disciplines. As the name of the journal suggests, one of its aims is to challenge established conventions and taken-for-granted perceptions within these fields.Education Inquiry is looking for lucid and significant contributions to the understanding of contextual, social, organizational and individual factors affecting teaching and learning, the links between these aspects, the nature and processes of education and training as well as research in and on Teacher Education and Teacher Education policy. This includes research ranging from pre-school education to higher education, and research on formal and informal settings. Education Inquiry welcomes cross-disciplinary contributions and innovative perspectives. Of particularly interest are studies that take as their starting point, education practice and subject teaching or didactics.Education Inquiry welcomes research from a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches, and invites studies that make the nature and use of educational research the subject of inquiry. Comparative and country-specific studies are also welcome.Education Inquiry readers include educators, researchers, teachers and policy makers in various cultural contexts.Every issue of Education Inquiry publishes peer-reviewed articles in one, two or three different sections. Open section: Articles sent in by authors as part of regular journal submissions and published after a blind review process. Thematic section: Articles reflecting the theme of a conference or workshop and published after a blind review process. Invited section: Articles by researchers invited by Education Inquiry to shed light on a specific theme or for a specific purpose and published after a review process.Education Inquiry is a continuation of the Journal of Research in Teacher Education, which is available in printed copies as well as electronic versions and free access at http://www.use.umu.se/ forskning/publikationer/lof/ O P E N S E C T I O N 475 Education Inquiry Vol. 2, No. 3, September 2011, pp.475-495 Students' learning styles compared with their teachers' learning styles in upper secondary schoola mismatched combination Lena Boström* AbstractThe background to this study is the large number of students who fail to finish upper secondary school with passing grades. The overall aim of this study was to examine one parameter in the didactic interaction between teachers and students, namely differences and similarities in learning styles. This study therefore compares teachers' and students' learning styles profiles in the two major orientations in upper secondary school. The study involved 53 secondary school teachers and 101 high school students who were randomly selected. The learning styles assessment PEPS was used to identify 20 different traits. Th...

Abstract. The aim of this study was to describe how primary school teachers perceive differences in behaviour and learning between boys and girls in relation to their teaching and methods. A quantitative approach was used in this study, and the analysis was built on descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations. The results show that the teachers had a positive view of their teaching. However, they generally had low expectations of the boys. The teachers also perceived that they made a great effort to adapt the teaching according to the students' prerequisites and needs. Individual work was a frequently used teaching method, although this was perceived as unfavorable for the boys' learning. The boys' behaviours were perceived as negative for learning, the boys were described as dependent, idle, and unmotivated. Negative characteristics might affect the teachers' expectations of high learning outcomes, and may ultimately affect the boys' school performances. The result of this study emphasizes the importance of that teachers reflect on their teaching methods in relation to boys, and girls' prerequisites in the classroom.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse how teachers perceive the internal learning environment at Swedish leisure-time centres and set it in relation to steering documents. The empirical data is based on a comprehensive web-survey of 4,043 leisure-time teachers in Sweden. The methodological approach is a qualitative directed content analysis. The results show large differences and inequalities in the quality of leisure-time centres' premises, an educational form characterized by integration with school and therefore to some extent lost autonomy. Activities in leisure-time centres combine individuality and social community in creative forms of play and social relationships. Because of this there are complex requirements for premises and dysfunctional premises reduce the opportunities to create good learning environments. The existing conditions for the majority of leisure-time centres do not correspond to the intentions in the steering documents concerning good learning environments. Leisure time centres have started to reproduce the (environmental) logic of 'traditional teaching premises' and to ignore their own (environmental) potential, which is even prescribed in specific steering documents. These results have implications for policy decisions and educational development.

SammanfattningDenna studie fördjupar kunskapen i tidigare forskning om ledarskap i det didaktiska rummet, dvs. inramningen av aktuell undervisningssituation oavsett plats. Syftet var att (a) identifiera och klassificera mönster och trender om lärares ledarskap i det didaktiska rummet 1980-2013, (b) jämföra och diskutera resultaten, och (c) peka ut en framtida forskningsinriktning. Metoden är en systematisk litteraturöversikt (SLR) med en kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultaten visar att hälften av forskningen utfördes under 2006-2013. Resultaten visar också att lärarnas ledarskap är ett västerländskt fenomen som blivit alltmer relevant under senare tid. Dessutom finns det två frågor som kan kopplas till detta ledarskap: oklara gränser mellan olika typer av ledarskap och en sammanblandning av lärares personlighet och ledarstil. Detta understryker förekomsten av kontextuella och situerade didaktiska strategier samt flexibla ledarstilar i det didaktiska rummet. Studien visar förvisso på medvetenheten om olika didaktiska aspekter, men det saknas forskningsdesigner som införlivar den didaktiska komplexiteten.Nyckelord: didaktik; didaktiskt ledarskap; litteraturgranskning; lärares ledarskapAbstractThis study deepens our knowledge about research on leadership in the didactic room, i.e., the framing of the current teaching situation, regardless of its location. The objective was to (a) identify and classify patterns and trends concerning teachers’ leadership in the didactic room from 1980 to 2013, (b) compare and discuss the findings, and (c) point to a future research agenda. The method is a systematic literature review (SLR) with a quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The results revealed that half of the research on this topic was performed from 2006 to 2013. The results also show that teachers’ leadership appears to be a Western phenomenon that is becoming increasingly relevant in our time. Two issues could be linked to this leadership: the unclear boundaries between different types of leadership and confusion about teachers’ personalities and leadership styles. This underlines the importance of contextual and situated didactic strategies and flexible leadership styles in the didactic room. Even if this study shows that an awareness of different didactic aspects exists concerning teachers’ leadership, a comprehensive approach to designing studies that incorporate the didactic complexities is lacking.Keywords: didactic, didactic leadership, literature review, teachers’ leadership