Mediation analysis is an important statistical tool in many research fields, where the joint significance test is widely utilized for examining mediation effects. Nevertheless, the limitation of this mediation testing method stems from its conservative Type I error, which reduces its statistical power and imposes certain constraints on its…

In 2018, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities' American Democracy Project (ADP) and Tufts University's Institute for Democracy & Higher Education (IDHE) formed a 3-year partnership to explore two approaches to studying institutional climates for political learning and participation in democracy. The goals were to repeat…

Global university rankings are often thought of as games, defined by roles and rules that universities must play in order to confirm their legitimacy and gain visibility as actors in the global academic market. While some countries are well represented at the top of rankings charts, others are just joining the race and testing out different…

Missing data are a common occurrence in survey-based research studies in education, and the way missing values are handled can significantly affect the results of analyses based on such data. Despite known problems with performance of some missing data handling methods, such as mean imputation, many researchers in education continue to use those…

This article presents a discussion of research and theoretical perspectives on creativity and instructional design, offering a conceptual model of the connection between these two constructs that was originally proposed in the dissertation work of the first author (Clinton, Creativity and design: A study of the learning experience of instructional…

This short article provides a legal analysis of the Hale et al. white paper on specific learning disabilities identification. The white paper presents a purported consensus of experts that an approach combining response to intervention with severe discrepancy is consistent with the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The analysis…

This article describes a hybrid standard setting method that combines characteristics of the Angoff (1971) and Bookmark (Mitzel, Lewis, Patz & Green, 2001) methods. The proposed approach utilizes strengths of each method while addressing weaknesses. An ordered item booklet, with items sorted based on item difficulty, is used in combination…

Assessment of student learning outcomes can be a powerful tool for improvement of instruction when a scientific approach is taken; unfortunately, many educators do not take full advantage of this approach. This article examines benefits of taking a scientific approach to critical thinking assessment and proposes guidelines for planning,…

We address 2 key points of contention in this article. First, we engage the debate concerning whether particular methods are necessarily linked to particular research paradigms. Second, we briefly describe a mixed methods version of grounded theory (MM-GT). Grounded theory can be tailored to work well in any of the 3 major forms of mixed methods…

The methods literature on research with children recognises the challenges of negotiating informed consent with this group. Special "child-friendly" techniques are advocated to overcome these challenges. We argue that, upon closer inspection, research with children foregrounds more fundamental problems with informed consent that are not easily…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the value of the written comments section on student evaluations of teaching and develop a framework to improve the interpretability of such data. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews past investigations into the reliability and interpretability of student evaluations of…

A report published by the Lexington Institute presents findings on the effectiveness of New Jersey's Abbott v. Burke court decisions from the late 1990s through 2009. The report argues that the reforms ordered by the state's supreme court failed to significantly increase student achievement despite what it terms as dramatic increases in spending.…

A comprehensive assessment system is one in which three types of assessments: summative, benchmark, and formative assessments are routinely administered to all students in K-12 classrooms. The first part of this report summarizes the research on comprehensive assessment systems and provides clarity in terms of how each individual assessment type…

This article explores how concept maps and mind maps can be used as data collection tools in mixed methods research to combine the clarity of quantitative counts with the nuance of qualitative reflections. Based on more traditional mixed methods approaches, this article details how the use of pre/post concept maps can be used to design qualitative…

An objective selection protocol identified 25 Ph.D. theses from Welsh universities in the period 2003-2008 which are relevant to the field of second language acquisition. Most of these fall into three broad subject areas: language in school, acquisition and assessment of spoken language, and lexical issues. The last of these encompasses the…