Research impact features heavily in debates about 'the measured university' and is now formally assessed by governments in the UK and Australia. Yet clear guidance on how impact can be measured in non-monetary ways is often lacking because of confused thinking and the context-specific nature of outcomes. To help resolve this, we first propose a…

Whilst critical realism (CR) is becoming recognised as a significant meta-theory for the social sciences, there is little guidance on how to produce research which is consistent with its ontological and epistemological assumptions. This article contributes to an emerging discussion about how CR can be applied, drawing on an example of a…

This paper surveys the state of the art on prediction in MOOCs through a systematic literature review (SLR). The main objectives are: first, to identify the characteristics of the MOOCs used for prediction, second, to describe the prediction outcomes, third, to classify the prediction features, fourth, to determine the techniques used to predict…

Much has been written about the importance of "writing with discipline" in order to increase the readability and, hence, the publishability of manuscripts submitted to journals for consideration for publication. More specifically, empirical evidence has been provided that links American Psychological Association (APA) errors, citation…

This article maps the territory of visual ethnography as a key and accessible research methodology in education. It aims to provide an overview and to present theory and practice for future research. The origins and principles of visual ethnography are disclosed as well as some methods to gather data. From the premise that either created by the…

In the causal inference literature, evaluating blocking from a potential outcomes perspective has two main branches of work. The first focuses on larger blocks, with multiple treatment and control units in each block. The second focuses on matched pairs, with a single treatment and control unit in each block. These literatures not only provide…

Implementation fidelity is considered an indicator of an intervention's internal validity. In reading research, while student outcome measures are often well described, measures of implementation fidelity have received far less attention. Although researchers have become interested in the relation between implementation fidelity and student…

Anxiety in autism is commonly reported by parents, but teacher reports of anxiety in their students with autism have received little attention. This paper presents the results from the first systematic review on anxiety in children with autism at school. Six intervention studies (five of which were based upon cognitive-behavioural therapy) and 26…

Much of qualitative interview research encourages researcher reflexivity, though there seems some uncertainty of how one actually does reflexive research. We show in this case that reflexivity includes examinations of the researcher in relation to the interviewed "other," and that transcriptions--a common element of interview-based…

This article provides insight into how an adequate approach to selecting methods can establish credible and actionable evidence. The authors offer strategies to effectively support Extension professionals, including program developers and evaluators, in being more deliberate when selecting appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods. In…

Tradition of research in Indian distance education is not very strong. Only after the establishment of India Gandhi National Open University in 1985 serious research began. Distance education is a branch of general education and therefore distance education research and practices have been influenced by research on adult learning. Most of the…

Objective: To evaluate and validate the time of completion and results of a new method of searching for systematic reviews, the exhaustive search method (ESM), using a pragmatic comparison. Methods: Single-line search strategies were prepared in a text document. Term completeness was ensured with a novel optimization technique. Macros in MS Word…

Introduction: Rating the quality of a body of evidence is an increasingly common component of research syntheses on intervention effectiveness. This study sought to identify and examine existing systems for rating the quality of a body of evidence on the effectiveness of health and social interventions. Methods: We used a multicomponent search…

Thousands of children with cancer participate in medical and social sciences research during and beyond their hospitalization and treatment. However, methodological techniques and issues in conducting qualitative research with children with cancer have received little attention in the literature to date. Therefore, the present article explores the…

The research of Systemic Functional Linguistics has been quite in-depth in both theory and practice. However, many linguists hold that Systemic Functional Linguistics has no hypothesis testing or experiments and its research is only qualitative. Analyses of the corpus, intelligent computing and language evolution on the ideological background of…