Fields from political science to critical education policy studies have long explored power relations in policy processes, showing who influences policy agendas, policy creation, and policy implementation. Yet showing particular actors' influence on specific points in a policy text remains a methodological challenge. This article presents a…

Sound evaluation planning requires numerous decisions about how constructs in a program theory will be translated into measures and instruments that produce evaluation data. This article, the first in a dialogue exchange, examines how decisions about measurement are (and should be) made, especially in the context of small-scale local program…

The primary purpose of a literature review is to assist readers in understanding the whole body of available research on a topic, informing readers on the strengths and weaknesses of studies within that body. It is defined by its guiding concept or topical focus: an account of what was previously published on a specific topic. This prevents…

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…

Many qualitative research methods inadvertently examine the client's perspective through the lens of researcher- or counsellor-derived constructs and categories, thereby blurring practitioner and client perspectives. This article provides a step-by-step guide for conducting multivariate concept-mapping (MVCM), a mixed-methods research design that…

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to describe a design that mixes single-case (sometimes referred to as single-subject) and qualitative methods, hereafter referred to as a single-case mixed methods design (SCD-MM). Minimal attention has been given to the topic of applying qualitative methods to SCD work in the literature. These two…

Most models of mixed methods research design provide equal emphasis of qualitative and quantitative data analyses and interpretation. Other models stress one method more than the other. The present article is a discourse about the investigator's decision to employ a mixed method design to examine special education teachers' advocacy and…

This article explores the practical relevance of pragmatism as a research paradigm through the example of a piece of pragmatic research that not only used both quantitative and qualitative research methods but also exploited the inherent duality of the data analyzed. Thus, the article aims to make the case that pragmatism as a research paradigm…

Teaching mixed methods research is difficult. This longitudinal explanatory study examined how two classes were designed, taught, and evaluated. Curriculum, Research, and Teaching (EDCS-606) and Mixed Methods Research (EDCS-780) used a research proposal generation process to highlight the importance of the purpose, research question and…

This commentary considers some of the challenges of applying mixed methods research in undergraduate research degrees, especially in professions with a clinical health focus. Our experience in physiotherapy academia is used as an example. Mixed methods research is increasingly appreciated in its own right as a "third paradigm," however the success…

This paper provides a framework for developing sampling designs in mixed methods research. First, we present sampling schemes that have been associated with quantitative and qualitative research. Second, we discuss sample size considerations and provide sample size recommendations for each of the major research designs for quantitative and…

With the increased popularity of qualitative research, researchers in counseling psychology are expanding their methodologies to include mixed methods designs. These designs involve the collection, analysis, and integration of quantitative and qualitative data in a single or multiphase study. This article presents an overview of mixed methods…

This occasional paper introduces the methods of research synthesis and meta-analysis to researchers and consumers of research in the field of adult learning and literacy. To begin, the first section of the paper defines key terms and offers a brief history of how the methodologies developed. The second section provides a conceptualization of…

In applied and experimental research, it has been demonstrated that the extreme groups procedure is more powerful than the standard correlational approach for some values of the correlation and extreme group size. Methods are provided for using the covariance information that is usually discarded in the classical extreme groups approach.…

Some of the issues that affect the validity and reliability of research studies are discussed to aid readers in interpreting and evaluating research studies in shorthand. (MP)