Recommendations from multiple professional organizations (e.g., American Psychological Association, Council for Exceptional Children, National Association of School Psychologists) suggest that collection of data on the social validity in practice and research is necessary. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the inclusion of…

This dissertation is composed of projects on three aspects of gathering and learning from data in the social sciences: drawing representative samples, taking valid measurement, and making warranted inductive inferences. Chapter one studies the challenge of drawing representative human samples. It is well documented that most samples used by…

For the past two decades, educational intervention research has rallied around the common goal of determining "what works in education" to inform education practice and policy (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). To study individual, contextual, and implementation processes and their interaction with educational interventions requires…

Noncredit enrollment at community colleges has grown significantly over the past two decades. However, unlike credit bearing programs, noncredit programs are seldomly empirically examined and evaluated, particularly those that are not grant funded. The lack of data results in a gap in knowledge about program effectiveness, as well as the students…

This commentary discusses the implication of child and adolescent development research for public policy in Latin America. As illustrated by the articles in this special issue, even though the research of child and adolescent development in Latin America is making significant progress, still more research is needed. Developmental research in the…

The OECD's international education indicators have become very influential in contemporary education policies. Although these indicators are now routinely, annually published in the form of "Education at a Glance," the calculability upon which the indicators depend was an achievement that involved the mobilisation of a huge machinery of…

In recent years, there has been increased interest in engagement during learning. This is of particular interest in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains, in which many students struggle and where the United States needs skilled workers. This article lays out some issues important for framing research on this topic and…

This study measured the salience of, sentiment of, and topics about schools in social media. Based on a mixed-methods approach, results indicated that school districts do not appear to be discussed often or widely, but the small numbers of people who communicate about districts do so repeatedly, positively, and in concentration. Larger and…

This guide is designed to help researchers make sure that their research reports include enough information about study measures so that readers can assess the quality of the study's methods and results. The guide also provides examples of write-ups about measures and suggests resources for learning more about these topics. The guide assumes…

This article describes some of the conceptual and methodological issues that arise when researchers use teacher logs to measure classroom instruction. Data and examples come from the Study of Instructional Improvement, which used teacher logs to study patterns of literacy instruction in schools implementing three comprehensive school reforms. Over…

This study describes how much and in what ways authors of research studies fail to include adequate information about data collection. Results based on analysis of 220 articles from 22 journals show that the quality of measurement reporting continues to be a problem. (SLD)

Two distinct traditions have developed around the two leading methods of social research, i.e., surveys and field work. Because of the rivalry between the proponents of these two methods, there has been little opportunity to explore the advantages of combining them in a single project. Most sociological research either utilizes a single method of…

The Delphi technique is a method for the systematic solicitation and aggregation of informed judgments from a group of experts on specific questions or issues. This paper is a discussion of the technique: its uses, misuses, and future. (Author)

Evaluated the accuracy of three methods used to obtain policy data: (1) government surveys; (2) secondary sources; and (3) historical legal research. Findings from a study of changes in state legislation show legal research to be most accurate for established laws, but multistage data best for recent laws. (SLD)

This paper is based on the premise that relatively little is known about how to improve validity in qualitative research and less is known about how to estimate validity in studies conducted by others. The purpose of the study was to describe the conceptualization of validity in qualitative inquiry to determine how it was used by the author of a…