Two- and three-level designs in educational and psychological research can involve entire populations of Level-3 and possibly Level-2 units, such as schools and educational districts nested within a given state, or neighborhoods and counties in a state. Such a design is of increasing relevance in empirical research owing to the growing popularity…

The same L2 speaking performance may be analysed and evaluated in very different ways by different teachers or raters. We present a new, technology-assisted research design which opens up to investigation the trajectories of convergence and divergence between raters. We tracked and recorded what different raters noticed when, whilst grading a…

Researchers and policymakers in the US and beyond increasingly seek to identify teaching qualities that are associated with academic achievement gains for K-12 students through effectiveness studies. Yet teaching quality varies with academic content and social contexts, involves multiple participants, and requires a range of skills, knowledge, and…

Reflecting recent knowledge and developments in the field, this very practical, easy-to-use guide emphasizes learning how to do case study research--from the first step of deciding whether a case study is the way to go to the last step of verifying and confirming findings before disseminating them. The authors show students how to determine an…

Randomized control trials are considered the gold standard for conducting research and estimating causal effects; however, educational research rarely lends itself to experimental design and true randomization. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in finding new approaches to estimate causal effects in nonrandomized studies in…

Methods for meta-analyzing single-case designs (SCDs) are needed in order to inform evidence based practice in special education and to draw broader and more defensible generalizations in areas where SCDs comprise a large part of the research base. The most widely used outcomes in single-case research are measures of behavior collected using…

The propensity score is the probability of treatment assignment conditional on observed baseline characteristics. The propensity score allows one to design and analyze an observational (nonrandomized) study so that it mimics some of the particular characteristics of a randomized controlled trial. In particular, the propensity score is a balancing…

Scientific investigations play a vital role in teaching and learning the process of science. An investigative task that was developed for pre-university students is described here. The task involves extraction of an enzyme from a vegetable source and its detection by biochemical method. At the beginning of the experiment, a hypothesis is presented…

This paper postulates that having students engage in albeit limited and flawed research is a more effective way of changing attitudes than lecture or discussion. A common goal of the introductory linguistics course is to instill healthy language attitudes, but there is little extant research on the pedagogy of linguistics indicating how this may…

This highly readable text demystifies the qualitative research process--and helps readers conceptualize their own studies--by organizing the different research paradigms and traditions into coherent clusters. Real-world examples and firsthand perspectives illustrate the research process; instructive exercises and activities build on each other so…

This paper takes as its starting point an examination of the current status of some of the concerns that were raised in the mid-1980s about methodological problems faced by educational researchers using the behavioural approach in schools. These concerns included the measurement of agreement between observers, the interpretation of raw data…

The purpose of this technical report is to summarize the research methodology of the Novice Teacher Study (NTS) strand of the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) research. The Ohio TQP embarked on a series of research studies to learn more about the characteristics of effective teachers and to identify the patterns of teacher performance in both…

Most people are frustrated with the current scientific method presented in textbooks. The scientific method--a simplistic model of the scientific inquiry process--fails in most cases to provide a successful guide to how science is done. This is not shocking, really. Many simple models used in science are quite useful within their limitations. When…

The 3-year project developed self-instructional programs and evaluated parent use of these programs (approximately 185 families) to improve behavior problems of their handicapped children, aged 3 to 9. The project's format included five goals (e.g., determination of the degree to which parents can treat behavioral problems without professional…

Research indicates that peer interaction can have a substantial impact on the lives of adolescents with disabilities. However, social interaction among adolescents with intellectual disabilities and their general education peers typically occurs infrequently in secondary schools. This paper provides a critical analysis of twenty-six empirical…