When conceived of as both a research strategy and mode to present findings, vignettes can be combined with various qualitative methodologies in higher education research. Rather than being a discipline unto itself, higher education research is best understood as a multi and cross-disciplinary field of study that, we contend, is made richer by its…

The body of research in the field of postsecondary education and disability is wide ranging and continues to evolve. Specifically, the literature corpus includes contributions from a range of professions and a considerable number of journals. This breadth of diversity in perspective presents significant advantages; however, it also presents…

Not long ago, "brand" was an unmentionable word in the higher education landscape--one that came with suspicious connotations of consumer packaged goods and retail. Today, however, there is increasingly broad acceptance that a higher education institution's (HEI's) brand is critical to attracting and retaining the best students and…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Standards Briefs explain the rules the WWC uses to evaluate the quality of studies for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. This brief explains what baseline equivalence is and why it matters. As part of the WWC review process for certain types of studies, reviewers assess whether the intervention group…

Packed with new topics that reflect today's challenges, the Sixth Edition of the bestselling "How to Conduct Surveys" guides readers through the process of developing their own rigorous surveys and evaluating the credibility and transparency of surveys created by others. Offering practical, step-by-step advice and written in the same…

Design-based research lends itself to educational research as the aim of this approach is to develop and refine the design of artefacts, tools and curriculum and to advance existing theory or develop new theories that can support and lead to a deepened understanding of learning. This paper provides an overview of the potential benefits of using a…

Morgan, Hodge, Trepinski, and Anderson (2014) have written an article that continues to confirm what we have known for some time-teacher effects on student achievement have limited stability. In this commentary, we address the other potential contributions this work can make to inform practice, policy, and research. While illustrating Morgan et…

A meta-analysis by Tran, Sanchez, Arellano, and Swanson (2011) of the published RTI literature found that the magnitude of effect size (ES) between responders and low responders at posttest was significantly moderated by the pretest ES and the type of dependent measure administered, whereas no significant moderating effects were found in the mixed…

It is sometimes a difficult journey receiving ethics approval for research involving vulnerable populations, research involving our own children, or innovative research methodologies such as autoethnography. This autoethnographical account is a story about one student who wanted to write a PhD dissertation in a very different way and also the…

This article argues the importance of including significant technologies-in-use as key qualitative research participants when studying today's digitally enhanced learning environments. We gather a set of eight heuristics to assist qualitative researchers in "interviewing" technologies-in-use (or other relevant objects), drawing on concrete…

Over the past few years, the focus group method has assumed a very important role as a method for collecting qualitative data in social and behavioural science research. This article elucidates theoretical and practical problems and prospects associated with the use of focus groups as a qualitative research method in social and behavioural science…

Individually randomized treatments are often administered within a group setting. As a consequence, outcomes for treated individuals may be correlated due to provider effects, common experiences within the group, and/or informal processes of socialization. In contrast, it is often reasonable to regard outcomes for control participants as…

Surveys continue to be one of the primary research methods in social science research, as they have been useful for exploring subjects ranging from attitudes and intentions to motivations and behaviors, to name but a few. Notwithstanding, response rates in survey research continue to decline despite the development of more systematic procedures to…

Reviews the major approaches used by social scientists to measure daily experiences, including interval-contingent, signal- contingent, and event-contingent methods. Examples of how these methods have been used in therapeutic recreation and leisure research are provided. The unique challenges and issues of measuring the daily experiences of…

The level of discourse theory was empirically tested to determine its usefulness to researchers in selecting independent variables for population and subpopulation models of leisure participation. Recommendations for combining social aggregate and social action independent variables in population and subpopulation participation models are…