Weighting adjustments are used in some studies to compensate for biased estimators produced by survey nonresponse. Using data from the 2004 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the NSSE poststratification weighting algorithm, this study found that weighting adjustments were needed for some, but not all institutions. Unfortunately, no…

Twitter (www.twitter.com) has become kind of a popular culture punch line. It's often used as a shorthand to represent how self-obsessed and self-involved the American culture has become, and while Twitter does lend itself to a kind of needless sharing, it also has some potentially useful features. Twitter is a microblogging service that allows…

How to deal with the relationship between the researcher and the "researched" is a crucial thing in design of a language research project and the analysis of data. The paper mainly focuses the influence of power relations between the researcher and the "researched" people. To do social research "on, for and with" the…

The purpose of this study was to explore sandtray as a group supervision method in counselor education programs. The research centered on the personal growth and development of counselor interns as they conceptualized and reflected on cases during group supervision. Research questions guiding the process included: What is the experience of…

Despite some gains, improving secondary mathematics instruction remains an area of concern of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Recitation, also known as lecturing, prevails as the practice of choice of mathematics teachers in the United States. However, the report of the NCTM Research Advisory Committee 2000 indicates that…

Looking in classrooms is one of the most basic requirements of school improvement, and yet it is one of the least practised skills of teachers and one of the most contentious methods of educational researchers. When it does occur, it is difficult to agree on what to look for and even more difficult to agree on what is seen. This paper outlines an…

Indigenous conversation and voice are increasingly heard in the research literature but there needs to be more dialogue in order for it to be a two-way conversation. This paper contributes to research that attempts to redress this situation by reporting on conversations with Aboriginal parents and caregivers of students enrolled in a public…

In this study, farmers were engaged in a participatory research project and their attitudes evaluated. The purpose was to identify the characteristics of farmers who are favourably predisposed towards meaningful participation in the process. Several cover crops were tested for possible use in the management of watergrass ("Commelina…

This article explores epistemological awareness and instantiation of methods, as well as uninformed ambiguity, in qualitative methodological decision making and research reporting. The authors argue that efforts should be made to make the research process, epistemologies, values, methodological decision points, and argumentative logic open,…

The author responds to comments by Barone (2009), Clandinin and Murphy (2009), and M. W. Smith (2009) on "The Construction Zone: Literary Elements in Narrative Research" (Coulter & M. L. Smith, 2009). She clarifies issues regarding point of view, authorial surplus, narrative coherence, and the relational qualities of narrative research. She…

This commentary highlights convergent themes from four articles in the March 2009 issue of "Educational Researcher" on measuring classroom instruction. Classroom instruction is a complex enterprise that occurs at the intersection of teachers, students, and texts within the surrounding classroom, school, and community environments. Progress in…

This article critiques the articles by Connor et al., Croninger and Valli, Pianta and Hamre, and Rowan and Correnti, which appeared in the March 2009 issue of "Educational Researcher," by taking a cultural-historical perspective on reading and reading instruction. In this paradigm a number of those authors' assumptions are seen as questionable,…

The field of intervention and prevention research is rapidly growing. In this general discussion of the studies in the special issue on intervention and prevention with adolescents, we highlight some of the challenges facing researchers in this field. One is the community perspective. Family and school are the primary settings for intervention…

Conventional approaches for fostering research productivity, such as recruitment and incentives, do relatively little to develop latent capacities in researchers. Six promising unorthodox approaches are the promotion of regular writing, tools for creativity, good luck, happiness, good health and crowd wisdom. These options challenge conventional…

Like other public sector institutions, higher education has become part of the accountability movement. Colleges and universities increasingly rely on institutional research offices to document performance by providing data to external audiences. In fact, most of the funding available to colleges and universities today comes with some kind of…