Large-scale analyses are a powerful and increasingly common tool for investigating a range of public health and social concerns (Pienta, O'Rourke, & Franks, 2011). This series will provide a primer on large-scale secondary analysis in school psychology, with this article focusing on considerations for researchers interested in applying and…

The purpose of this article is to provide a resource for school counselors to recognize key indicators of quality quantitative research and make informed decisions about incorporating scholarly works into school counseling practice and comprehensive program development. We describe quality indicators of quantitative research by walking readers…

Quantitative social science (QSS) has the potential to make an important contribution to public policy. However it also has a number of limitations. The aim of this paper is to explain these limitations to a non-specialist audience and to identify a number of ways in which QSS research could be improved to better inform public policy.

The Becoming A Man (BAM) program is a school-based group counseling and mentoring program run by Youth Guidance (YG), a community organization that serves children in Chicago schools who are at risk. BAM guides young men to learn, internalize, and practice social cognitive skills, make responsible decisions for their future, and become positive…

What topic would you choose if you had the luxury of writing forever? In this article, John Thelin provides his response: He would opt to write about the history of higher education in a way that relies on quantitative data. "Numbers, please!" is his research request in taking on a longitudinal study of colleges and universities over…

This essay briefly describes some of the early AERA presidents who were empiricists, several of them directors of research, and how their work connects with some of the issues of design, measurement, analysis, and interpretation today. Beginning with the first president of AERA, a number of presidents through the late 1940s are highlighted, as…

Too often, researchers get a bad name for engaging in inquiry that is inaccessible to the practitioner and policy communities who could most benefit from it. Although speaking to others in the scholarly community is important, researchers must also be able to translate their results into more accessible language for multiple audiences. This…

Different research designs answer different questions. Educators cannot use nonexperimental quantitative research designs, such as descriptive surveys and correlational research, to determine definitively that an intervention causes improved student outcomes and is an evidence-based practice. However, such research can (a) inform educators about a…

This series of articles examines the use of research in vocational agriculture, including interpretation of findings, research needs and problems for the 1980s, using research in inservice education, and the role of supervisors in research. (SK)

The social sciences are awash with studies of varying quality. The process of getting published is supposed to sort the good from the bad and, through feedback and editing, make the good better. Ideally, that is how the system should and usually does work--but it does not always work that way. One problem with social science research is that the…

A generation ago, Fred N. Kerlinger proposed that there were a number of myths that pervaded educational research. An overview of three specific myths is presented, followed by a discussion of the degree to which these myths have been overcome or still exist in educational research. The first of these myths, the "methods" myth, is…

Education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike are committed to identifying interventions that teach students more effectively. Increased emphasis on evaluation and accountability has increased desire for sound evaluations of these interventions; and at the same time, school-level data have become increasingly available. This article…

A University of Arizona undergraduate pharmacy course designed to develop student skills in evaluation of research has five parts: introduction to the scientific method; statistical techniques/data analysis review; research design; fundamentals of clinical studies; and practical applications. Prerequisites include biostatistics and drug…

This paper presents the research and methodology and analyses used for the "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades" research. This appendix contains the following sections: (1) Overview; (2) Constructing the Survey Data File; (3) Constructing Composite Independent Variables (Subdomains); (4) Constructing Longitudinal Outcome Variables; (5)…

This appendix accompanies "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better. A Large-Scale Study of Middle Grades Practices and Student Outcomes. Initial Research Report." This appendix focuses on the findings and domain comparisons of the study. This appendix contains the following: (1) Decision Rules; (2) Full Set of…