Purpose: Critical realism is an increasingly popular "lens" through which complex events, entities and phenomena can be studied. Yet detailed operationalisations of critical realism are at present relatively scarce. This study's objective here is built on existing debates by developing an open systems model of reality, a basis for…

Within social science research the complex nature of relationship-making and 'friendship as method' has gained enthusiasm. However, there is still a significant lack of research on 'friendship as method' with children and young people in participatory studies. Drawing on empirical case studies, we ask: how does 'friendship as method' work in…

To provide context surrounding the history of single-case research and to act as a benchmark for which future changes across the fields and disciplines that use single-case methods may be compared, we conducted this study to serve as an update and extension on the trends and prevalence of single-case research in the peer-reviewed literature. Our…

This protocol guided the review of research that informs the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide entitled "Strategies for Postsecondary Students in Developmental Education -- A Practice Guide for College and University Administrators, Advisors, and Faculty." This protocol was used in conjunction with the "WWC Procedures…

In the field of educational technology and instructional design, research methods are emerging that aim to curate different forms of knowledge and insights beyond traditional research studies, or what Reigeluth and An (in Reigeluth and Carr-Chellman (eds) Instructional-design theories and models: Building a common knowledge base, Lawrence Erlbaum…

Researchers increasingly take advantage of the comparative case design to build theory, but the degree of case dependence is occasionally discussed and theorized. We suggest that the comparative case study design might be subject to an often underappreciated threat--dependence across cases--under certain conditions. Using research on innovation…

As wider social and societal changes have led to moves towards equality as a response to a better understanding of inequalities, ethical considerations in research are now more consciously focussed on power dynamics. As a consequence, participatory research methods have gained traction. Simultaneously, artistic and creative methods are used within…

This case study presents two qualitative feminist research approaches to investigate lived experiences of early-career academics: autoethnography and collective narrative inquiry. Autoethnography tells a story from the researcher's perspective, whereas collective narrative inquiry challenges researcher objectivity and presents multiple participant…

We conducted a scoping review on the consecutive controlled case series (CCCS) methodology (Hagopian, 2020). The CCCS is an approach to studying functional relations across a series of consecutive cases that share common features. We identified and reviewed 76 studies that used CCCS methodology. Most of these (a) were retrospective CCCS studies…

In this case study, I provide the methodologic approaches I used to investigate four in-service biology teachers' perspectives when using science instruction to address racial stereotypes within secondary science education. This case study provides practical advice for novice qualitative researchers who wish to conduct and design an intervention…

The ever-increasing application of Digital Humanities techniques to social scientific research questions calls for continuous reflection on how they can contribute to scholarly research in combination with other more common text analysis methods. This article explores the various dimensions along which scholarly text analysis can be performed,…

The present work provides a review of two widely used approaches in educational research: action research and case study. Action research aims to improve educational practice by means of reflective cycles and shows variants according to a predominant paradigm, from technical to critical visions. A case study, described as an umbrella term, focuses…

While methodologies are often presented as standardised procedures which, under specified conditions, should lead to the same conclusions, this case study presents the complex and deeply personal process of research (Addey and Piattoeva 2022). We analyse our application of network ethnography -- an approach presented by Ball (2016) -- to the study…

Single-case designs substantiate the effectiveness of interventions for people with disabilities and other populations through the repeated measurement of behavior over time. Consequently, employing accurate and reliable systems of measurement is critical to the validity of single-case designs. Much of the data in single-case research are…

This case study presents a multistage and multimodal methodology for conducting online research studies using video conferencing tools. We designed our methodology to capture how Brazilian schoolchildren (ages 9-11) transact, alone or with others, homework information-searching routines. Our case study presents the steps involved in designing an…