Given the increased focus of educational research on what works for whom and under what circumstances over the last decade, educational researchers are increasingly turning toward mixture models to identify heterogeneous subgroups among students. Such data are inherently nested, as students are nested within classrooms and schools. Yet there has…

Comparative education is advancing with a growing emphasis on innovative research methodologies; however, integrating these approaches to address complex global education challenges remains difficult. While traditional qualitative methods are valuable, they often fail to capture the multifaceted nature of today's educational landscape. This review…

Secondary data analyses occur when new analyses are proposed for existing data. Although they are prevalent in special education research, there is little guidance on how to prepare secondary data analyses studies. Preregistration of secondary data analyses studies provides a nice opportunity and structure for fellow researchers to share…

Background: Britain is rich in longitudinal population cohort studies that posit valuable data resources for social science. However, education researchers currently underutilize these resources. Aims: The current paper (1) outlines the power and benefits of secondary data analyses for educational science and (2) provides a practical guide for…

One major challenge of longitudinal data analysis is to find an appropriate statistical model that corresponds to the theory of change and the research questions at hand. In the present article, we argue that "continuous-time models" are well suited to study the continuously developing constructs of primary interest in the education…

More aggregate data on school performance is available than ever before, opening up new possibilities for applied researchers interested in assessing the effectiveness of school-level interventions quickly and at a relatively low cost by implementing comparative interrupted times series (CITS) designs. We examine the extent to which effect…

The arc of quantitative educational research should not be etched in stone but should adapt and change over time. In this article, I argue that it is time for a reshaping by offering my personal view of the past, present and future of our field. Educational research--and research in the social and life sciences--is at a crossroads. There are many…

This paper examines the origins and influences of the introduction of longitudinal student data-sets as a way of gaining insight into the operation of American schools and as a tool for policy-makers. The paper argues that the creation of this new form of data in the 1960s and 1970s represented a relatively new way of thinking about American…

This paper argues that learning analytics (LA) can make contributions to learning research, in addition to aiming for improvements in learning and teaching practices in a solely applied sense. Indeed, there is potential for transforming learning research if certain approaches developed in LA were used more extensively to study learning. The…

We examine the American landscape of higher education quantitative research concerning how gender and sex demographic information is collected. We use a directed content analysis to examine the prevalence and operationalization of gender and sex among widely used higher education survey instruments. Our findings illuminate a seemingly haphazard…

Intended to guide scholars who are new to qualitative research, this methods brief focuses mostly on what reviewers look for in manuscripts submitted for publication. The author acknowledges that reviewers' preferences likely reflect their theoretical perspectives, research-oriented coursework, mentors, and research and writing experiences. The…

In this paper, we present progress towards a longitudinal study of the post-course career advancement of MOOC learners. We present initial results and analysis plans for how to link this to in-course behaviour, towards better understanding the goals of all MOOC learners.

This panel examines research on early education from two research practice partnerships, the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC) with Baltimore City Schools and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Stanford-SFUSD Partnership with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and Stanford University in San Francisco,…

Each year teachers and principals in schools across Australia invest much time and effort, and considerable expense, in activities related to communicating student learning progress. However little is known about the effectiveness of these activities, including the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to…

Data use is becoming a prominent strategy for educational innovation and improvement across countries. However, the fragmentation of data collection often hinders the capacity of policymakers, researchers and practitioners to access and analyse the wealth of data routinely generated in educational institutions. A critical step towards realising…