Realist evaluation (RE) is a research design increasingly used in program evaluation, that aims to explore and understand the influence of context and underlying mechanisms on intervention or program outcomes. Several methodological challenges, however, are associated with this approach. This article summarizes RE key principles and examines some…

To conduct a multilevel meta-analysis of multiple single-case experimental design (SCED) studies, the individual participant data (IPD) can be analyzed in one or two stages. In the one-stage approach, a multilevel model is estimated based on the raw data. In the two-stage approach, an effect size is calculated for each participant and these effect…

Missing data are ubiquitous in studies examining preventive interventions. This missing data need to be handled appropriately for data analyses to yield unbiased results. After a brief discussion of missing data mechanisms, inappropriate missing data treatments and appropriate missing data treatments, we review the current state of missing data…

The aim of the research was to determine what relations occur between the stress experienced by parents in the relationship with their children and the personality traits that they shape in them. Personal characteristics that parents shape in their children have been classified into metatraits described in the Circumplex of Personality model. The…

This reflection seeks to explore the role that power plays both in schooling and in research, specifically through the use of action research. The authors began this process in informal conversations reflecting on their personal experience with action research methods. Qualitative methods were then used with the authors using semistructured…

Response-to-intervention (RtI) is a multi-tiered framework designed to prevent academic difficulties by facilitating robust, research-based instruction and providing targeted or individualized short-term interventions for students at-risk per periodic screening and progress monitoring data. The cornerstone of RtI is data-based decision-making to…

Transforming spoken words into written text in qualitative research is a vital step in familiarizing and immersing oneself in the data. We share a three-step approach of how data transcription facilitated an interpretative act of analysis in a study using qualitative data collection methods on the barriers and facilitators of HIV testing and…

Background: Britain is rich in longitudinal population cohort studies that posit valuable data resources for social science. However, education researchers currently underutilize these resources. Aims: The current paper (1) outlines the power and benefits of secondary data analyses for educational science and (2) provides a practical guide for…

Preregistration and registered reports are two promising open science practices for increasing transparency in the scientific process. In particular, they create transparency around one of the most consequential distinctions in research design: the data analytics decisions made before data collection and post-hoc decisions made afterwards.…

Writing and communication researchers are in the early stages of developing procedures for reusing and maximizing the analytical potentials of qualitative data. Contributing to this effort, we critically reflect on our methodological decision-making process in developing innovative procedures for cross-analyzing two distinct studies. Our…

The past 20 years have seen the steady 'datafication' of school systems -- i.e. the rendering of key aspects of school practice into data that is digitally collected, processed and circulated. In contrast to assumptions of 'data-driven' schools as sites of more efficient and automated forms of data work, this paper examines the extensive human…

Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an iterative, open-ended data analysis procedure that allows practitioners to examine data without pre-conceived notions to advise improvement processes and make informed decisions. Education is a data-rich field that is primed for a transition into a deeper, more purposeful use of data. This article introduces…

The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the greatest challenges faced for a very long time. However, it has also presented educators with novel opportunities for teaching, none more so than in science. There are the obvious links between COVID-19 and the body of scientific knowledge that curriculum designers think educators should help students to…

With various digital technologies increasingly integrated into higher education, understanding how students engage with such technologies has become vital. There are different ways to measure student engagement; however, self-reported measures such as questionnaires are predominantly used to understand student engagement. In contrast, this study…

Historically, there has been concern about students losing reading ability over extended breaks from school, commonly in the summer, but studies of this phenomenon have produced inconsistent results. We applied exploratory visual analysis of multiple datasets to examine whether students in Grades K-5 appear to lose or improve in various reading…