The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to (a) learn more about first-year parents' expectations of communication with the university, (b) learn more about communication practices of university faculty and staff regarding communication with parents, (c) examine the reasons behind the expectations and practices of both parent groups and…

Whether the goal is to identify and describe trends and variation in populations, create new measures of key phenomena, or describe samples in studies aimed at identifying causal effects, description plays a critical role in the scientific process in general and education research in particular. Descriptive analysis identifies patterns in data to…

Effective communication is essential in every organization, including educational institutions. Often, members of the online community work in isolation. Collaboration across varying disciplines and departments can promote unique professional development activities and create a stronger connection to the entire online community. "Enriching…

This article is written for scholars, researchers, and academic leaders who have a passion to share their knowledge outside the classroom, laboratory, or institution. They want to make a difference and believe that the information they possess and ideas they have to offer have a public importance. Based on his book "Pitch Perfect:…

Because scientific understanding of communicating family research to policymakers is incomplete, qualitative interviews were conducted with social scientists experienced in bridging the gulf between research and family policy. In keeping with the tenets of 2 communities and community dissonance theories, the underutilization of research in…

In this paper, we introduce various graphical methods that can be used to represent data in mixed research. First, we present a broad taxonomy of visual representation. Next, we use this taxonomy to provide an overview of visual techniques for quantitative data display and qualitative data display. Then, we propose what we call "crossover" visual…

Because of what are perceived by some as potential challenges it is still commonplace for research to fail to seek the opinions of pupils with multiple and complex needs. While many such pupils do have significant communication difficulties, along with other disabilities, which are undoubtedly a constraint, it is crucial in order to be inclusive,…

"School Readiness Indicators: Making Progress for Young Children" was a multi-state initiative that used child well-being indicators to build a change agenda in states and local communities in order to improve school readiness and ensure early school success. The central premise behind this initiative was that top-notch school readiness…

The Veterans Health Administration (VA) provides a case study for linking performance measurement, information technology, and aligned research efforts to facilitate quality improvement in a large, complex health system. Dialogue between clinical researchers and VA leaders occurs through structured activities (e.g., the Quality Enhancement…

Acceptance of claims made in scientific research articles depends on the "stance" authors take and their resources for "appraisal" (Martin and White, http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal). "Stance" has been defined as "the ways authors project themselves into their texts to communicate their relationship to subject matter and the readers",…

In this article, the author discusses the use in policy analysis of models that incorporate uncertainty. He believes that all models should consider incorporating uncertainty, but that at the same time it is important to understand that sampling variability is not usually the dominant driver of uncertainty in policy analyses. He also argues that…

Although increased communication between school personnel and parents is now widely held to be beneficial, present knowledge is based principally on nonsystematic studies at the preschool and primary levels that are of questionable validity at the secondary level. To make up for the lack of emphasis in previous research on establishing specific…