Experimental designs in the social sciences have received increasing attention due to their power to produce causal inferences. Nevertheless, experimental research faces limitations, including limited external validity and unrealistic treatments. We propose combining qualitative fieldwork and experimental design iteratively--moving back-and-forth…

This article delineates the process through which a quantitative study in the context of Pakistan was adapted into emergent mixed methods research due to COVID-19-related complexities. The in-process data collection was halted abruptly as schools were closed and lockdowns were imposed across Pakistan in the early 2020s due to COVID-19. In…

Descriptive analyses of socially important or theoretically interesting phenomena and trends are a vital component of research in the behavioral, social, economic, and health sciences. Such analyses yield reliable results when using representative individual participant data (IPD) from studies with complex survey designs, including educational…

The book provides a grounded, narrative exploration of contemporary qualitative PhD research in the fields of language education and applied linguistics. The chapters are authored by current and former PhD candidates studying in New Zealand, with commentaries from international experts in the field. The book contains ten chapters in addition to…

This book engages readers via the international contributions from "home" field sites around the world and international authors. Importantly, the various chapters address a wide spectrum of educational contexts -- ranging from higher education, to K-12 public and private schools, to prison schools. The realistic accounts portrayed in…

This manual is a practical training guide for graduate and undergraduate research assistants (RAs) working in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. It may also be applicable to research assistants working in other fields or institutions. The purpose of this manual is to train RAs on how to plan and conduct focus groups for…

It is crucial for social researchers to clarify their researchers' roles, especially for those utilizing qualitative methodology to make their research credible. The purpose of this paper is to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the researcher's insider role, an instructor, occupied within case study research on the integration of…

Critiques of child participation within aid programming suggest that it is superficial and insubstantive for the fulfilment of children's rights. By employing former child research participants as youth research assistants, the collaborative research design developed for my research project on the survival strategies of African orphans and…

In this article, we set out to explore what we describe as the use of video in various modalities. For us, modality is a synthesizing construct that draws together and differentiates between the notion of "video" both as a method and as a methodology. It encompasses the use of the term video as both product and process, and as a data…

In this paper we present our experiences of conducting focus groups with young people as part of a participatory approach to research design and participant recruitment. The research is a prospective, 10-year, qualitative, longitudinal project investigating young people's daily lives, relationships, and identities, and the ways these change over…

This article explores the practical relevance of pragmatism as a research paradigm through the example of a piece of pragmatic research that not only used both quantitative and qualitative research methods but also exploited the inherent duality of the data analyzed. Thus, the article aims to make the case that pragmatism as a research paradigm…

Combining methods in a single study is becoming a more common practice because of the limitations of using only one approach to fully address all aspects of a research question. Hermeneutics in this paper is discussed in relation to a large national study that investigated issues influencing the ability of international graduates to work as…

Policy interest in international surveys on Adult Learning (AL) has increased strongly. AL survey data are used as benchmarks for a country's educational system. However, results of key indicators like participation in learning activities often vary remarkably between different data sources. Stating that these differences are due to varying…

The Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will establish technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the survey design and implementation processes of PIAAC yield high-quality and internationally comparable data. This document provides a revised version of the technical standards and guidelines originally…

This article analyses some typical consequences of a specific research policy on experimental research in biology. The policy is conducted by a national funding agency--the Swiss National Science Foundation--through a particular programme, the "National Centres of Competence in Research" which is designed to promote both "scientific…