This article reviews the origins and use of the terms quasi-experiment and natural experiment. It demonstrates how the terms conflate whether variation in the independent variable of interest falls short of random with whether researchers find, rather than intervene to create, that variation. Using the lens of assignment--the process driving…

Until now, the conventional approach using two distinct groups, experimental and control, continues to dominate research, especially education research. Researchers, particularly those who are active in this domain, readily recognise this pattern when surveying literature. This article explores the use of the Solomon four-group design as a…

Scholarly efforts to identify core design features for effective teacher professional development have grown rapidly in the last 25 years. Many concise lists of design principles have emerged, most of which converge on a consensus of 5-7 presumably 'effective' features (e.g. collaborative tasks, active learning, focus on content). The…

Medical education may lack experiential training on authentic community engagement (CE). Employing a human-centered design approach with medical faculty and students to identify goals, opportunities, needs, and barriers to implementing CE research, we developed an Experiential Community Engagement Learning Series (EXCELS) pilot program. EXCELS…

Research on computing in higher education research has been dominated by studies on "things that work" (or not). While useful, the field now needs more research on authentic tech-related problems of practice and viable solutions that resolve them. This article describes one such approach: Educational Design Research (EDR). It begins with…

One of the educational resources that Indonesia has produced extensively is e-modules. It is still necessary to investigate and assess e-module development research. Analysis of e-module development publications in Indonesian biology education journals is the goal of this assessment of the literature. Only the JPBI (Jurnal Pendidikan Biologi…

The randomized control trial (RCT) is the primary experimental design in education research due to its strong internal validity for causal inference. However, in situations where RCTs are not feasible or ethical, quasi-experiments are alternatives to establish causal inference. This paper serves as an introduction to several quasi-experimental…

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate and comment on some themes related to construct validity, construct choice, and construct respecification in the Campbellian validity system. It is argued that Reichardt's [(2008, November). An alternative to the Campbellian conceptualization of validity. (Paper presentation). Evaluation 2008 Conference,…

Single-case research design is a useful methodology to investigate counseling treatment effects through a time-series graph. A systematic review of 42 counseling journals was conducted, yielding 50 studies, including 272 graphs. Most graphs did not meet recommended guidelines. How graphs impact visual analysis and suggestions to enhance…

Purpose: This study reports on changes made within the study, plan, teach and reflect steps of lesson study with pre-service teachers who were learning to teach within a disciplinary literacy course. Design/methodology/approach: Using methods associated with formative experiments and design-based research, this study gathered data over four…

This paper considers notions of spaces and relations in research design for critical education researchers, based on Freirean principles of empowerment education. Three reflective 'narratives of praxis' from community-based research are explored. The first narrative takes a community arts approach to research and is situated in an urban…

Active learning approaches to biology teaching, including simulation-based activities, are known to enhance student learning, especially of higher-order skills; nonetheless, there are still many open questions about what features of an activity promote optimal learning. Here we designed three versions of a simulation-based tutorial called…

Purpose: Recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have ignited a new wave of discourse regarding the future of education research and reinvigorated calls for education research to be more relevant to practice. An emerging research paradigm, continuous improvement research (CIR), responds to that debate by…

Egocentric networks represent a popular research design for network research. However, to what extent and under what conditions egocentric network centrality can serve as reasonable substitutes for their sociocentric counterparts are important questions to study. The answers to these questions are uncertain simply because of the large variety of…

Teaching chemistry and biology students about biologics design remains challenging despite its increasing importance in pharmaceutical development. Monoclonal antibodies, commonly called mAbs, are the most popular biologics. They have been developed into drugs to treat various diseases in the past decades. Multiple challenges exist for designing…