The importance of a positive start to school has been highlighted in a range of national and international research. This has stimulated considerable ongoing research attention, as well as initiatives across policy and practice, all with the aim of promoting a positive transition to school for all children. Despite the common interests across…

This is the first of a two-part article that aims to chart the contemporary landscape of research on teacher preparation and certification. It is based on a review of more than 1,500 studies published between 2000 and 2012. Part 1 provides information about how the review was conducted and describes the theoretical/analytic framework the authors…

The research we report on was conducted from our computer desktops. We have not met the people we have studied; they are part of what Eichhorn described as a "textual community", gathered around the threads of online conversations associated with a website servicing the needs of English-language speakers in Germany. The thread in…

In a more complex and dynamic world, it is important to have knowledge of research methods in order to understand our internal and external environments. This paper aims to outline different ways of approaching research into language studies and mainly provides an introduction to one of them, the interview. As interviewing is one of the main data…

The practice of homeschooling still receives contrasting responses on its relevancy and effectiveness. The current study is aimed to map the trends in the selected eleven studies from various educational journals. The analysis focuses on mapping the trends on: a) research settings, b) target sample, c) method or instrument used, d) common focus or…

The article examines women's studies as a moment that mediates the conflict between the women's movement and the university on the question of knowledge and knowledge-production. The starting point is the assertion made by historical-materialist feminists that knowledge is produced in and through political struggle. The article argues that social…

This paper outlines the process and results of an authentic assessment of student work using a revised version of the AAC&U's Information Literacy VALUE rubric. This rigorous assessment, which included the scoring of nearly 900 student papers from four different stages across the undergraduate curriculum, revealed much about the process of…

This paper explores the methodological approaches most commonly adopted in the scholarly literature on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), published during the period January 2008-May 2014. In order to identify trends, gaps and criticalities related to the methodological approaches of this emerging field of research, we analysed 60 papers…

The authors over the years have expressed criticism about meta-analysis. However, it could not be more popular. Recently a major news station reported the use of meta-analysis in a new finding.

This article examines the possibilities of photography as a tool for Qualitative Research data collection, data analysis, and display. The authors argue that the new vanguard of Educational Technologies (ETs) further illuminates the analytical possibilities of photographic data and ETs can serve as an engaging way to interact with meaning-making…

In this article, the authors discuss a pedagogical approach that connects the cultural aspects of mathematics with its academic aspects in which they refer to as ethnomodeling. Ethnomodeling is the process of translation and elaboration of problems and questions taken from systems that are part of the daily life of the members of any given…

As a university lecturer, I find that a frequent question raised by Masters students concerns the methodology chosen for research and the rationale required in dissertations. This paper unpicks some of the philosophical coherence that can inform choices to be made regarding methodology and a well-thought out rationale that can add to the rigour of…

Increasingly, "research" is not being conducted in a separate group in an organization; rather, it is being integrated into the fabric of the organization. Google recently described such an integrated, "hybrid" model of software research that is characterized by cycles of short duration and small-scope activity that is ongoing…

This paper focuses on the trade-offs that lie at the intersection of methodological requirements for causal effect studies and policies that affect how and to what extent schools engage in such studies. More specifically, current federal funding priorities encourage large-scale randomized studies of interventions in authentic settings. At the same…

This paper draws upon a two-year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded study into the educational strategies of the black middle classes to examine the role of race and racism in the research process. Specifically, it explores how my political positioning and experiences of racism, as a black female scholar, shaped not only my…