According to the National Institutes of Health, "Translational research includes …the process of applying discoveries generated during research in the laboratory, and in preclinical studies, to the development of trials and studies in humans… [and] research aimed at enhancing the adoption of best practices in the community. Following this…

Crowdsourcing is a process in which a firm parcels out work to a "crowd" and offers payment for anyone within the crowd who completes the task determined by that firm. A growing number of behavioral scientists have begun using the Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to facilitate their research and practice, but there is apparently not one academic…

Replications and robustness checks are key elements of the scientific method and a staple in many disciplines. However, leading journals in developmental psychology rarely include explicit replications of prior research conducted by different investigators, and few require authors to establish in their articles or online appendices that their key…

In addition to qualitative methods presented in chaos and complexity theories in educational research, this article addresses quantitative methods that may show potential for future research studies. Although much in the social and behavioral sciences literature has focused on computer simulations, this article explores current chaos and…

A didactic discussion of a latent variable modeling approach is presented that addresses frequent empirical concerns of social, behavioral, and educational researchers involved in longitudinal studies. The method is suitable when the purpose is to analyze repeated measure data along several interrelated dimensions and to explain some of the…

The central messages of this paper are that (a) unequal variances may be more prevalent than typically imagined in educational and policy research, and (b) when considering tests of equal variances one needs to be cautious about what is being referred to as "Levene's test" because Levene's test is actually a family of techniques. Depending on…

This paper considers five empirical and theoretical issues which have arisen from a comparison of behavioral analyses in controlled laboratory settings and similar analyses in naturalistic human environments. (Editor)

Qualitative, or ethnographic, inquiry seeks understanding of human behavior from the participants' own frame of reference. Since business education research is designed to investigate and understand the environment of work to prepare people for occupations, qualitative research enables a deeper comprehension of human interactions than the…

Differing theoretical approaches to the study of emotions are presented: emotions as private (psychodynamic approaches); emotions as sociocultural phenomena (social constructionist approaches); and a third perspective (interactionist approaches) transcending these two. These approaches have important methodological implications in studying…

Places behavioral field systems analysis (FSA) into perspective historically and in terms of its relationship to behavioral science as a whole, focusing on (1) J.R. Kantor and interbehaviorism, (2) the change from linear mechanics to fields/systems, and (3) contemporary scientific relatives of FSA. (SM)

Insights into learning disabilities can result from adopting the Piagetian perspective. Although significant contributions have been made by taking a psychometric view of learning disabilities, these contributions are limited because the psychometric view focuses on quantifiable differences in functioning, the end product of thinking, and the…

Criticizes an earlier essay that questioned the validity of contemporary educational research practices, especially those involving experimentation. Argues that research using experimentation is valid and can lead to new and generalizable knowledge. (FMW)

Presents a general class of single-case statistical procedures derived from previously developed nonparametric randomization tests. Designs are illustrated that focus on the general and comparative effectiveness of alternative interventions, multiple units with differentiable characteristics, and multiple outcome measures. Provides operational…

In this article, we argue for a change in how researchers study motivation to learn. We believe that research can provide better explanations of the origins and outcomes of behavior, and thus be more useful, if we focus on how motivation develops and why it changes. We suggest reframing motivation research in education by extending the current…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the guidelines used in the study to develop "good" problems for young children and to describe the nature of some problems so developed. (Author)