Researchers tasked with understanding the effects of educational technology innovations face the challenge of providing evidence of causality. Given the complexities of studying learning in authentic contexts interwoven with technological affordances, conducting tightly-controlled randomized experiments is not always feasible nor desirable. Today,…

The purpose of this study is to develop a nonparametric DIF method that (a) compares focal groups directly to the composite group that will be used to develop the reported test score scale, and (b) allows practitioners to explore for DIF related to focal groups stemming from multicategorical variables that constitute a small proportion of the…

Designing rigorous studies to identify technology-based interventions to improve K-12 student reading skills require intervention researchers to take a "road less traveled." This chapter presents that road using the Knowledge Acquisition and Transformation Expansions (KATE) intervention as a case study. An early version of KATE has shown…

Various areas of educational research are interested in the transitions between different states--or events--in sequential data, with the goal of understanding the significance of these transitions; one notable example is affect dynamics, which aims to identify important transitions between affective states. Unfortunately, several works have…

Managing and analysing large qualitative datasets pose a particular challenge for researchers seeking a consistent and rigorous approach to qualitative data analysis. This paper describes and demonstrates the development and adoption of a matrix tool to guide the qualitative data analysis of a large sample (N = 122) of interview data. The paper…

Practitioner-focused educational doctoral programs have grown substantially in recent years. Dissertations in Practice (DiPs), which are the culminating research report and evaluation method in these programs, differ from traditional PhD dissertations in their focus on addressing a problem of practice and on connecting theories with practice. As…

Planning inclusive research should center meaningful engagement of co-researchers with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities to address issues that are important to their communities. There are a variety of approaches to planning research projects consistent with the guiding principles of inclusive research. We describe components of…

Random encouragement designs are randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that test interventions aimed at increasing participation in a program or activity whose take up is not universal. In these RCTs, instead of randomizing individuals or clusters directly into treatment and control groups to participate in a program or activity, the randomization…

"Decolonising our approaches to educational research-- Learning from our shared experiences at Rangahau Matauranga o Aotearoa (NZCER)" shares insights from a recent workshop at NZCER focused on the questions, tensions and challenges our kairangahau are grappling with in research and evaluation. It includes a description of the workshop…

Many teacher education researchers have expressed concerns about the lack of rigorous impact evaluations of teacher preparation practices. I summarize these various concerns as they relate to issues of internal validity, measurement, and external validity. I then assess the prevalence of these issues by reviewing 166 impact evaluations of teacher…

Identifying and fostering gifted students is crucial in educational science and psychology. Giftedness diagnostics must be based on profound domain-specific concepts and acknowledge the variety of talents to enable a successful individual education. Growing challenges like digitalization, decarbonization, demographic changes, and pandemics…

Purpose -- Through the use of content analysis, this study was aimed at identifying the patterns in research conducted during the past decade and investigating the bibliometric outcomes of articles focused on augmented reality (AR) utilization in biology learning. Methodology -- This study conducted a bibliometric analysis. To perform the…

The adoption of the maker-centered method is gaining popularity in K-12 school curricula. However, a unified consensus on its effectiveness in enhancing K-12 students' learning outcomes remains elusive. Therefore, the purpose of this meta-analysis was to synthesize the findings on the overall effects of the maker-centered learning method on K-12…

Research has indicated that the ever-changing emerging technologies have different impacts on music education from many perspectives such as; music pedagogy, instruction methods, evaluation approaches. For almost 30 years the online learning and education platforms based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides both teachers and students with rich…

This book provides a wealth of rich cases describing how research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in K-12 schools navigate equity in the design and implementation of their projects and shares insightful recommendations for both research-side and practice-side RPP leaders engaged in this work. Chapter authors from both researcher and practitioner…