The robustness of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) results features high on the agenda of methodologists and practitioners. This article aims at advancing this debate on several fronts. First, in line with the extant literature, we take a comprehensive view on robustness arguing that decisions on calibration, consistency, and frequency…

Writing and communication researchers are in the early stages of developing procedures for reusing and maximizing the analytical potentials of qualitative data. Contributing to this effort, we critically reflect on our methodological decision-making process in developing innovative procedures for cross-analyzing two distinct studies. Our…

Translation into another language to enable understanding (of concepts or phenomena) is a basic cultural technique and a prerequisite for international research. Translation decisions inevitably shape the research process and output for qualitative researchers relying on interview or textual data. Decisions need to be made in all stages of the…

This article investigates dilemmas in the archiving and sharing of qualitative data in educational research, critically engaging with practices and debates from across the social sciences. Ethical, epistemological and methodological challenges are examined in reference to open access agendas, the politics of knowledge production, and…

In this study, we explore the heuristic decision-making skills of undergraduate students as they incorporate information into their persuasive speeches. We interviewed 26 students enrolled in an introductory communication course to ascertain their information literacy for vetting sources for their public speeches. From their responses, we…

Participatory sensing is a data collection method in which communities of people collect and share data to investigate large-scale processes. These data have many features often associated with the big data paradigm: they are rich and multivariate, include non-numeric data, and are collected as determined by an algorithm rather than by traditional…

Building on the research of National Board Certification and its effect on teacher quality, student achievement, and professional development, this dissertation seeks to explore the factors that influence teachers when it is time to renew their National Board Certification. Using a qualitative methodology, this study seeks to describe the process…

In this paper, I share the results of a study of teachers' ideas about student decision-making at entry into a professional development program to integrate engineering into their instruction. The framework for the Engineering Design Process (EDP) was based on a Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) model. The EDP embedded within the CBL model suggests…

Current preservice teacher education practice related to data use has been deemed inadequate, in that it is unevenly distributed and often superficial. In response, this article describes a course-based classroom assessment data-literacy experience for preservice elementary teachers. Grounded in extant theory and research concerning data literacy…

Researchers regularly deal with ethical considerations when writing up their research. However, such considerations are rarely addressed in existing research ethics literature. Here, the focus tends to be on ethical considerations that arise in relation to research proposals and "protocols," that is, during the "process" of…

This qualitative study investigated how community colleges that have been nationally recognized for their success create and nurture environments to use data effectively. This kind of data use has been described as developing and sustaining a culture of evidence or a culture of inquiry. However, the exact definitions of culture of evidence and…

Objective: Evidence suggests that younger mothers engage in poorer health behaviours, resulting in increased cancer risk. We aimed to better understand the health behaviours of younger mothers and the factors that influence their lifestyle choices, in order to improve cancer prevention within this population. Methods: A multiple focus group,…

The Graduate Student Internships for Career Exploration (GSICE) program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), offers structured training and hands-on experience through internships for a broad range of PhD-level careers. The GSICE program model was successfully replicated at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). Here, we…

Governments, organizations, and companies are generating copious amounts of data and analysis to support education decision-making around the world. While continued investments in data creation and management are necessary, the ultimate value of information is not in its "production," but its "use." Herein lies one of the…

Privileging elite academic pedigrees in graduate admissions preserves racial and socioeconomic inequities that many institutions say they wish to reduce. To understand this preference, I integrate across perspectives on trust in rational choice, social capital, and social network theories, and use the resulting framework to interpret 68 interviews…