This case study focuses on issues and dilemmas I faced when collecting data on a social networking site that enabled sociability, communication, and collaboration among teachers. To understand teacher online participation, I used an eclectic mixed-methods design with three phases to collect qualitative and quantitative data. This design allowed me…

The goal of this case study was to introduce students to ways to conduct research on parent child cognitive learning interactions. To this end, the case study begins with an overview of the theoretical and empirical work supporting the development of my research program on parent child cognitive learning interaction research and continues with a…

Designing your own study and writing your research proposal takes time, often more so than conducting the study. This practical, accessible guide walks you through the entire process. You will learn to identify and narrow your research topic, develop your research question, design your study, and choose appropriate sampling and measurement…

In this case study, two members from a team of a tenured professor, an early career professor, and a doctoral student outline their experiences from conducting an online qualitative survey research study. The goal of the study was to seek the opinion of experts in the field of education, statistics, and economics about the use of value-added…

Since 2010, I have acted as the full-time researcher on a longitudinal qualitative study which has been following the transition experiences of more than 80 young people in the United Kingdom who have a visual impairment. When I first started working with these participants, they were aged 14-16 years, and I have now been working with them for 6…

Could the research you read be fundamentally flawed? Could critical defects in methodology slip by you undetected? To become informed consumers of research, students need to thoughtfully evaluate the research they read rather than accept it without question. This second edition of a classic text gives students the tools they need to apply critical…

Written for students and researchers who wish to understand the conceptual and practical aspects of sampling, this book is designed to be accessible without requiring advanced statistical training. It covers a wide range of topics, from the basics of sampling to special topics such as sampling rare populations, sampling organizational populations,…

Most questions in social and biomedical sciences are causal in nature: what would happen to individuals, or to groups, if part of their environment were changed? In this groundbreaking text, two world-renowned experts present statistical methods for studying such questions. This book starts with the notion of potential outcomes, each corresponding…

This case study is designed to demonstrate lessons learned investigating the integration of faith and learning at a faith-based university in southern California. It describes the use of a social survey to explicitly test a hypothesis related to the influence of having an attachment or vocational perspective on students' perceptions of integration…

Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

This case study describes the research carried out in partial fulfilment of the degree of doctor of education. The study was qualitative in nature with a phenomenological interpretive paradigm. My primary objective is to share my experience of combining life story and grounded theory research. My main objectives for undertaking the research were…

This case study presents an overview of methods used to carry out an exploratory mixed-methods ethnographic study of video bloggers, or vloggers, on YouTube. Vlogs can be used as a multimedia data source for researchers who wish to explore topics such as digital culture or self-expression in social media environments. A combination of online…

Systematic, practical, and accessible, this is the first book to focus on finding the most defensible design for a particular research question. Thoughtful guidelines are provided for weighing the advantages and disadvantages of various methods, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods designs. The book can be read sequentially or…

Newly updated and revised, this popular text provides a solid introduction to the foundations of research methods, with the goal of enabling students and professionals in the field of applied linguistics to become not just casual consumers of research who passively read bits and pieces of a research article, but "discerning" consumers able to…

In recent years, the concept of teachers as researchers in both special and mainstream school settings has become part of our everyday language. Whilst many educational practitioners will see the need for research within their setting, many may not be familiar with the technical elements they believe are required. "Creating Meaningful Inquiry in…