Mike Watts
Biographic Data
| ID | 3941850 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mike Watts |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mike |
| FAMILY NAME | Watts |
| SIGNATURE | WATTS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brunel University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8044-5418 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Students’ readiness for and adoption of smartphones for language learning
Smartphone technology has significantly transformed individuals’ daily experiences and learning. Understanding students’ readiness to embrace new technologies is pivotal to implementing smartphone-assisted English language learning (SAELL). However, investigations into students’ readiness for SAELL—particularly in the context of English as a non-communicative foreign language in Chinese universities—remain limited. Therefore, this study explores …
Two Stories and a Metaphor
This paper explores and showcases the return of two middle-aged women to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning, education, training and professions. We use the lenses of transformative learning theory and intersectionality to explore STEM identity development among our participant women in midlife, despite being ‘leaked out’ of the so-called STEM pipeline. We employ a qualitative phenomenological research design, condu…
Teachers’ and students’ unified perceptions of smartphone-assisted English learning in Chinese higher education institutions
Smart technology has reshaped living and learning, emphasising research on individual readiness for mobile learning. While studies examine student or teacher readiness, they do not address their shared and differing perceptions of smartphone-based learning in enhancing teaching and learning outcomes. This study investigated teachers’ and students’ perceptions of, and readiness for, smartphone-assisted English language learning (SAELL) in Chinese …
Assembly required
Some descriptions of learning represent the process as the development of organisations of elements.Various organisations have been proposed, for example, schemata and conceptual structures.Such representations assume that mental entities, such as concepts, are sufficiently stable and differentiated to be treated as units.We discuss these assumptions and propose a new term, assemblages, to refer to a person's activation of two or more conceptual …
In-service physics teachers’ content knowledge
Physics educators must possess a strong foundation in content knowledge to effectively promote scientific inquiry-based learning in line with the national curriculum goals. However, factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge gaps can impede meaningful teaching and learning of Physics. This study explores the use of the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) model to assess in-service Physics educators’ understanding of “Upthrust.” The research involved…
Intersectionality as personal
This paper studies intersectional multiplicity by encompassing the ways individuals shape relationships between social structures and their science identity. We discuss the science lives of two sixteen-year-old British South-Asian Muslim women studying in a single-sex independent school in London, both of whom aspire to science careers. Adapting McCall’s ‘intracategorical complexity’ in favouring a case study approach, we present the multiplicity…
Teaching and learning physics using technology
Even though its importance is underscored in many research pursuits, \nattention to the affective domain in learning is often \nneglected at the expense of the cognitive development of students \nstudying science, in particular physics. In this paper we propose a \nframework, the pedagogical technological integrated medium \n(PTIM) founded on the TPACK model, that builds on the existing \npremises of pedagogy, content and technology to make space…
Making the tacit explicit
A key highlight of this study is generating evidence of children ‘making aware the unaware’, making tacit knowledge explicit. The research explores the levels of awareness in thinking used by eight 7–8 year‐old children when engaged in school‐based genre writing tasks. The focus is on analysing children's awareness of their thought processes, using a framework originally devised in 1989 to investigate ways in which children can transform their ta…
Managing affect in learners' questions in undergraduate science
This article aims to position students' classroom questioning within the literature surrounding affect and its impact on learning. The article consists of two main sections. First, the act of questioning is discussed in order to highlight how affect shapes the process of questioning, and a four-part genesis to question-asking that we call CARE is described: the construction, asking, reception and evaluation of a learner's question. This work is c…
Youth at play
This paper explores the nature of playfulness in young people. Observations and a small-scale questionnaire study consider the characteristics of, and dispositions towards, playfulness in a particular setting: the Thai Toy gallery of the National Science Museum in Thailand. While not initially seen to be a ‘zone of play’, the gallery has deliberately invoked a sense of play through the use of toy-making activities. A small sample of 60 young visi…
We're just like Gok, but in reverse’
‘Pro-Ana’ Internet sites can foster or celebrate anorexia and bulimia nervosa in young women. Clinical discourse portrays anorexia as a problematic and deviant ‘condition’, while Pro-Ana/-Mia spaces offer an arena that appeals to control over how bodies are represented. We draw on data from a seven-year ethnographic study of young people's online worlds, from forums, postings on Pro-Ana sites and online interviews with Pro-Ana users, to illustrat…
Adult play-learning
This paper discusses some of the issues surrounding the nature of adult play. More specifically, we explore ‘family play-learning’, where play activities result in forms of added knowledge or insight for the adults involved. Adult play itself is an under-researched area, and play-learning even more so. We discuss related research and, in particular, the roles that adults adopt when the family is learning together through play. We focus in particu…
Western Science and Local Thai Wisdom
When I click “ok” I become Sassy – I become a girl’. Young people and gender identity
This article explores young people's practices in the virtual spaces of online gaming communities. Based on a five-year ethnographic study of virtual worlds, it considers how young people construct and maintain identities within virtual social systems. In particular, the article discusses digital gender practices and considers the potential that these games offer for their young users to engage in alternate gender identities. We argue that these …
Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools
A growing interest in the geographies of schooling has led to an exploration of a variety of school spaces. An increasing number of secondary schools offer internal fixed‐term exclusions so that temporary removal from school is not seen as ‘time off’ for students. This particular strategy has led to the creation of a new type of space in schools. Drawing upon research undertaken in a London secondary school, this paper explores the geography of t…
Orchestrating learning and teaching in interdisciplinary chemistry
The cause and affect of asking questions
The orchestration of learning and teaching methods in science education
Unweaving time and food chains
Spirituality and Drugs Education
Drugs education in the UK is in its infancy. Government strategies have highlighted parents as an important aspect of children's drugs education. This paper reports on research that has explored parents' and children's perception of drug issues as well as the experience of communication about drugs within the family. The research has drawn on a number of humanistic theoretical perspectives but rests principally upon George Kelly's Personal Constr…
Constructivism in the Classroom
More than the Sum of the Parts
Capitalism and hunger in Northern Nigeria
The Hausa areas of the Sudanic belt of West Africa certainly experienced food shortages, due mainly to weather or pestilence, but had a variety of social mechanisms to reduce their impact on any one family. Many of these mechanisms were undermined in the various transitions that resulted from colonialism without other measures to replace them. From this experience the meaning of ‘crisis’ in peripheral capitalist societies is explored as some comb…
Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools
A growing interest in the geographies of schooling has led to an exploration of a variety of school spaces. An increasing number of secondary schools offer internal fixed‐term exclusions so that temporary removal from school is not seen as ‘time off’ for students. This particular strategy has led to the creation of a new type of space in schools. Drawing upon research undertaken in a London secondary school, this paper explores the geography of t…
More than the Sum of the Parts
Capitalism and hunger in Northern Nigeria
The Hausa areas of the Sudanic belt of West Africa certainly experienced food shortages, due mainly to weather or pestilence, but had a variety of social mechanisms to reduce their impact on any one family. Many of these mechanisms were undermined in the various transitions that resulted from colonialism without other measures to replace them. From this experience the meaning of ‘crisis’ in peripheral capitalist societies is explored as some comb…
Constructivism in the Classroom
Capitalism and hunger in Northern Nigeria
The Hausa areas of the Sudanic belt of West Africa certainly experienced food shortages, due mainly to weather or pestilence, but had a variety of social mechanisms to reduce their impact on any one family. Many of these mechanisms were undermined in the various transitions that resulted from colonialism without other measures to replace them. From this experience the meaning of ‘crisis’ in peripheral capitalist societies is explored as some comb…
Constructivism in the Classroom
More than the Sum of the Parts
Spirituality and Drugs Education
Drugs education in the UK is in its infancy. Government strategies have highlighted parents as an important aspect of children's drugs education. This paper reports on research that has explored parents' and children's perception of drug issues as well as the experience of communication about drugs within the family. The research has drawn on a number of humanistic theoretical perspectives but rests principally upon George Kelly's Personal Constr…
Unweaving time and food chains
The orchestration of learning and teaching methods in science education
Orchestrating learning and teaching in interdisciplinary chemistry
The cause and affect of asking questions
Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools
A growing interest in the geographies of schooling has led to an exploration of a variety of school spaces. An increasing number of secondary schools offer internal fixed‐term exclusions so that temporary removal from school is not seen as ‘time off’ for students. This particular strategy has led to the creation of a new type of space in schools. Drawing upon research undertaken in a London secondary school, this paper explores the geography of t…
When I click “ok” I become Sassy – I become a girl’. Young people and gender identity
This article explores young people's practices in the virtual spaces of online gaming communities. Based on a five-year ethnographic study of virtual worlds, it considers how young people construct and maintain identities within virtual social systems. In particular, the article discusses digital gender practices and considers the potential that these games offer for their young users to engage in alternate gender identities. We argue that these …
Western Science and Local Thai Wisdom
Managing affect in learners' questions in undergraduate science
This article aims to position students' classroom questioning within the literature surrounding affect and its impact on learning. The article consists of two main sections. First, the act of questioning is discussed in order to highlight how affect shapes the process of questioning, and a four-part genesis to question-asking that we call CARE is described: the construction, asking, reception and evaluation of a learner's question. This work is c…
Youth at play
This paper explores the nature of playfulness in young people. Observations and a small-scale questionnaire study consider the characteristics of, and dispositions towards, playfulness in a particular setting: the Thai Toy gallery of the National Science Museum in Thailand. While not initially seen to be a ‘zone of play’, the gallery has deliberately invoked a sense of play through the use of toy-making activities. A small sample of 60 young visi…
We're just like Gok, but in reverse’
‘Pro-Ana’ Internet sites can foster or celebrate anorexia and bulimia nervosa in young women. Clinical discourse portrays anorexia as a problematic and deviant ‘condition’, while Pro-Ana/-Mia spaces offer an arena that appeals to control over how bodies are represented. We draw on data from a seven-year ethnographic study of young people's online worlds, from forums, postings on Pro-Ana sites and online interviews with Pro-Ana users, to illustrat…
Adult play-learning
This paper discusses some of the issues surrounding the nature of adult play. More specifically, we explore ‘family play-learning’, where play activities result in forms of added knowledge or insight for the adults involved. Adult play itself is an under-researched area, and play-learning even more so. We discuss related research and, in particular, the roles that adults adopt when the family is learning together through play. We focus in particu…
Making the tacit explicit
A key highlight of this study is generating evidence of children ‘making aware the unaware’, making tacit knowledge explicit. The research explores the levels of awareness in thinking used by eight 7–8 year‐old children when engaged in school‐based genre writing tasks. The focus is on analysing children's awareness of their thought processes, using a framework originally devised in 1989 to investigate ways in which children can transform their ta…
Teaching and learning physics using technology
Even though its importance is underscored in many research pursuits, \nattention to the affective domain in learning is often \nneglected at the expense of the cognitive development of students \nstudying science, in particular physics. In this paper we propose a \nframework, the pedagogical technological integrated medium \n(PTIM) founded on the TPACK model, that builds on the existing \npremises of pedagogy, content and technology to make space…
Intersectionality as personal
This paper studies intersectional multiplicity by encompassing the ways individuals shape relationships between social structures and their science identity. We discuss the science lives of two sixteen-year-old British South-Asian Muslim women studying in a single-sex independent school in London, both of whom aspire to science careers. Adapting McCall’s ‘intracategorical complexity’ in favouring a case study approach, we present the multiplicity…
Assembly required
Some descriptions of learning represent the process as the development of organisations of elements.Various organisations have been proposed, for example, schemata and conceptual structures.Such representations assume that mental entities, such as concepts, are sufficiently stable and differentiated to be treated as units.We discuss these assumptions and propose a new term, assemblages, to refer to a person's activation of two or more conceptual …
In-service physics teachers’ content knowledge
Physics educators must possess a strong foundation in content knowledge to effectively promote scientific inquiry-based learning in line with the national curriculum goals. However, factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge gaps can impede meaningful teaching and learning of Physics. This study explores the use of the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) model to assess in-service Physics educators’ understanding of “Upthrust.” The research involved…
Students’ readiness for and adoption of smartphones for language learning
Smartphone technology has significantly transformed individuals’ daily experiences and learning. Understanding students’ readiness to embrace new technologies is pivotal to implementing smartphone-assisted English language learning (SAELL). However, investigations into students’ readiness for SAELL—particularly in the context of English as a non-communicative foreign language in Chinese universities—remain limited. Therefore, this study explores …
Two Stories and a Metaphor
This paper explores and showcases the return of two middle-aged women to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning, education, training and professions. We use the lenses of transformative learning theory and intersectionality to explore STEM identity development among our participant women in midlife, despite being ‘leaked out’ of the so-called STEM pipeline. We employ a qualitative phenomenological research design, condu…
Teachers’ and students’ unified perceptions of smartphone-assisted English learning in Chinese higher education institutions
Smart technology has reshaped living and learning, emphasising research on individual readiness for mobile learning. While studies examine student or teacher readiness, they do not address their shared and differing perceptions of smartphone-based learning in enhancing teaching and learning outcomes. This study investigated teachers’ and students’ perceptions of, and readiness for, smartphone-assisted English language learning (SAELL) in Chinese …
Psychology (17 works) · Mathematics education (12 works) · Pedagogy (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Political science (6 works) · Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Education and Critical Thinking Development (4 works) · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies (4 works)