Considers assumptions underlying design of Bussell et al.'s Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development study. Suggests that a source of the common environment specific to this study is the effect of an individual in mutual ratings of relationship with siblings, leading to a larger common-environment effect across variables than within…

Describes the collaborative process and the lessons learned when the staff of a family-literacy program and an evaluator worked together to design and implement a portfolio assessment that was used to collect program-evaluation information for the Even Start program over two years. Discusses opportunities to collaborate in the development of this…

Examined the shift in the educational-research paradigm in Finland as seen in 335 doctoral dissertations. Early in the century, educational history was the dominant topic, but by the 1950s the experimental paradigm took over. By the 1980s, factor analysis was a very common research method. In the 1990s, qualitative analyses account for one-third…

Argues that research administrators would function more effectively and enjoy their work more with a better understanding of research. Offers examples of how some basic principles of research design can be readily conveyed to administrators with little or no research training. Discusses ways research administrators might benefit from better…

More methodologically sound research in adventure therapy is needed if the field is to claim empirically-based efficacy as a treatment modality. Some considerations for conducting outcome studies in adventure therapy relate to standardization, multiple domain assessment, regression techniques, objective assessment of participant change, client and…

The goals of the National Assistive Technology Research Institute are discussed, as well as ongoing research projects that address the status of school-based assistive technology (AT), AT policies and procedures, AT decisions made by Individualized Education Program teams, integration of AT into learning environments, effectiveness of AT, and…

Background: Studies from the amnesia literature suggest that errorless learning can produce superior results to errorful learning. However, it was found in a previous investigation by the present authors that errorless and errorful therapy produced equivalent results for patients with aphasic word-finding difficulties. A study in the academic…

Research on animated pedagogical agents (agents) is viewed as a very positive attempt to introduce more pedagogical support and motivational elements into multi-media instruction. Yet, existing empirical studies that examine the learning benefits of agents have had very mixed results, largely due to the way that they are designed. This article…

In this article we review our experience of collaborating in the design and delivery of multidisciplinary training and support programmes for doctoral students and our attempts to locate models and metaphors for research planning and implementation which travel well across disciplines. We extend the metaphor of the journey to conceptualize a…

In this paper, we address the often contentious debate over state and local recycling policy by carefully estimating the social net benefit of curbside recycling. Benefits are estimated using household survey data from over 4,000 households across 40 western U.S. cities. We calibrate household willingness to pay for hypothetical bias using an…

Recent research on children's historical thinking has produced rich descriptions of instruction. However, the research literature is largely lacking a theoretical model of learning. This article asserts that developmental constructivist theory informs research design and interpretation, provides explanatory power, and promises more useful…

This chapter highlights the need for incorporating institutional and societal context into institutional research in order to ensure accurate interpretation of data.

Counseling psychology researchers devote little attention to theory-based measurement validation, as evidenced by cursory mention of validity issues in the method and discussion sections of published research reports. Especially, many researchers appear unaware of the limitations of correlations between pairs of self-report measures as evidence of…

This article illustrates an innovative small-N research design that researchers and practitioners can use to investigate questions of interest in "professional school counseling." The distributed criterion (DC) design integrates elements of three classic small-N research designs--the changing criterion, reversal, and multiple baseline. The DC…

The Science Summit reinforced a question upon which many of us in science education are focused: How can we, the science education community of researchers, practitioners, and consumers, lead policy? We include a brief review of the No Child Left Behind Act and its implications for teachers, and elaborate about one ongoing and growing effort to…