The Campbellian validity typology has been used as a foundation for outcome evaluation and for developing evidence-based interventions for decades. As such, randomized control trials were preferred for outcome evaluation. However, some evaluators disagree with the validity typology's argument that randomized controlled trials as the best design…

Digital learning platforms (DLPs) are beginning to become open to research. Specifically, in our work in SEERNet, developers are extending five platforms, each used in either K-12 or higher education by more than 100,000 users, to enable third-party researchers to explore, develop, and test improvements. SEERNet seeks to enable equity-relevant…

Background: Historically, the research and treatment of self-injury has been disciplinarily siloed. As a result, the behaviour is understood and treated differently among individuals with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities. We explore the potential for an interdisciplinary research and practice agenda in self-injury. Method:…

Background: Stealth assessment is a learning analytics method, which leverages the collection and analysis of learners' interaction data to make real-time inferences about their learning. Employed in digital learning environments, stealth assessment helps researchers, educators, and teachers evaluate learners' competencies and customize the…

Schools are ideal settings to promote adolescent physical activity (PA), yet school-based interventions have shown limited long-term impact. This position paper presents key issues surrounding school-based PA interventions. Collaborative conceptual thinking drawing on multi-author expertise and available evidence advanced our understanding and…

Public school districts have been operating under a decade's long press to move beyond functioning as engines of access-oriented mass public schooling to functioning as instructionally focused education systems pursuing educational excellence and equity. This press has researchers developing analytic frameworks useful for examining different ways…

Public school districts have been operating under a decade's long press to move beyond functioning as engines of access-oriented mass public schooling to functioning as instructionally focused education systems pursuing educational excellence and equity. This press has researchers developing analytic frameworks useful for examining different ways…

Across the OECD, enormous effort and investment has been made to reinforce the quality, production and use of education research in policy and practice. Despite this, using research in education remains a challenge for many countries and systems. The OECD launched the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project to respond to this…

The last decade has witnessed resurgence in the interest in studying the causal mechanisms linking causes and effects. This article games through the methodological consequences that adopting a systems understanding of mechanisms has for what types of cases we should select when using in-depth case study methods like process tracing. The article…

This article enters the debate about the complex and dynamical nature of second language acquisition (SLA) by discussing and commenting on Pallotti's critique of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). Pallotti's critique brings to the fore the argument that, due to its anti-reductionist stance, CDST research fails to observe three fundamental…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) higher education is in need of improved teaching methods to increase learning for all students. Faculty professional development programs are a widespread strategy for fostering this improvement. Studies of faculty development programs have focused on program design and the impact of…

As complex systems approaches to research gain a foothold in educational research, educational researchers may be faced with unique study design challenges. Studies that do not target appropriate levels of analysis or do not capture variable change over time at a fine enough granularity run the risk of missing complex, dynamic, and emergent…

This conceptual paper contributes to the literature base on promoting equality of opportunity for students in higher education through seeking to broaden understanding of the influences on part-time study in the United Kingdom (UK). These students constitute a significant proportion of the total student population in the UK with research…

In this article, we introduce a template of methodological considerations, termed "the dynamic ensemble," for scholars doing or evaluating empirical second language development (SLD) research within a complexity/dynamic systems theory (CDST) framework. Given that CDST principles have yielded significant insight into SLD and have become…

This publication is based on the 2016 Society for Vocational Psychology (SVP) Biennial Conference, that was held at the Florida State University on May 16-17, 2016. The conference theme was "Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice in Vocational Psychology." The conference content and the resulting edited book are based on the…