The purpose of this article is to illustrate the process and insights gleaned from developing an implementation matrix to convey a concise, yet detailed representation of the project integration steps in a single diagram. The article is based on an explanatory sequential study conducted with 248 teachers exploring how beliefs shaped their use of…

The purpose of this article is to identify proper uses for mixed methods in leadership research and assessment. This article will highlight research and assessment questions that are best served by mixed methods and will offer practitioner-friendly guides and examples for integrating quantitative and qualitative data to help eat the whole whale…

For research evidence to inform decision making, an appraisal needs to be made of whether the claims are justified and whether they are useful to the decisions being made. This chapter provides a high level framework of core issues relevant to appraising the "fitness for purpose" of evidence claims. The framework includes (I) the…

Evidence-based assessment (EBA) requires that investigators employ scientific theories and research findings to guide decisions about what domains to measure, how and when to measure them, and how to make decisions and interpret results. To implement EBA, investigators need high-quality assessment tools along with evidence-based processes. We…

Research-practice partnerships often face a fundamental tension: well-designed, high-quality research takes time, but practitioners and policy makers need answers to pressing questions as soon as possible. In this article, Jason Sachs, Meghan McCormick, JoAnn Hsueh, and Catherine Snow discuss this mismatch between the tight timelines of…

Group design research studies can provide evidence to draw conclusions about "what works," "for whom," and "under what conditions" in special education. The quality indicators introduced by Gersten and colleagues (2005) have contributed to increased rigor in group design research, which has provided substantial…

Understanding human judgement and decision making during visual inspection of data is of both practical and theoretical interest. While visualizing data is a commonly employed mechanism to support complex cognitive processes such as inference, judgement, and decision making, the process of supporting and scaffolding cognition through effective…

This paper describes instruments designed to use multimedia to study at scale the instructional decisions that mathematics teachers make as well as teachers' recognition of elements of the context of their work that might influence those decision. This methodological contribution shows how evidence of constructs like instructional norm and…

Classroom observations are sometimes a challenging form of data collection. Not only are interpretations of those observations subject to the researcher's theoretical lens, but communication between the researcher and the teacher is often delayed until well after the observed events. This article reports research that focused on the pedagogical…

As a university lecturer, I find that a frequent question raised by Masters students concerns the methodology chosen for research and the rationale required in dissertations. This paper unpicks some of the philosophical coherence that can inform choices to be made regarding methodology and a well-thought out rationale that can add to the rigour of…

Sound evaluation planning requires numerous decisions about how constructs in a program theory will be translated into measures and instruments that produce evaluation data. This article, the first in a dialogue exchange, examines how decisions about measurement are (and should be) made, especially in the context of small-scale local program…

This conceptual model introduces a process to help school counselors use data to drive decision making and offers examples to implement the process. A step-by-step process is offered to help school counselors and school counselor supervisors address educational issues, close achievement gaps, and demonstrate program effectiveness. To illustrate…

This paper emerges from a view that the growing body of self-reflective qualitative research designs elsewhere in education is insufficiently represented in early childhood enquiry. Research of this sort has a rich capacity to inform critical understanding with experiential data that reveal the remarkable within the quotidian; more specifically,…

Actions that the South Carolina Department of Education suggests to agencies completing the development of a Request for Proposal (RFP) are presented. Four parts of the RFP include: (1) scope of work; (2) proposal bidding and contractual information; (3) proposal evaluation; and (4) preparation guide. (RL)

To provide an overview of the specific components that must be considered when making decisions about research in the field of gifted education, the authors describe and evaluate the three types of evidence--speculative or anecdotal, theoretical, and empirical--commonly offered in the literature of the field. Empirical, or evidence-based, research…