Because surveys now can be implemented with relative ease and little cost, many researchers are overlooking the basic principles of survey research. This chapter discusses sources of error that researchers should consider when conducting a survey, and gives readers basic suggestions for reducing error. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This article discusses the dearth of qualitative and quantitative research in "Religious Education." There is a growing concern in educational journals that the field must respond to the needs of practitioners and publish what has been called "really useful knowledge" (Johnson 1988, 21-22). In "Religious Education," 86.5% of the published articles…

Increasing numbers of music education researchers have begun to use qualitative methods to examine research topics using interviews, observations, documents, and archival data. In this article, I review qualitative research methodology and its origins and methods, discuss topics that have been studied by music education researchers using…

Teaching and learning in a second or third language has become a common phenomenon in South African schools. This phenomenon leads to learners finding themselves in schools where the language of instruction is not known well to them. One of the main contributing factors as to why this is happening could be attributed to the challenges in the South…

It is impossible to teach well or conduct good research without some personal sense of involvement. Without attending to these apparently extraneous emotional aspects our work is impoverished. At the same time it is the needs of indigenous peoples as subjects in research and teaching which are paramount. The author touches on the relevance of…

Practitioner research is a topic of growing interest and scholarly writing in the field of education in general and adult education in particular. This article describes a particular form of practitioner research that rests on a participatory worldview and draws heavily from theory and practice in adult learning and action research.…

Several accounts concerning the systematic use of action research by eminent educators in the process of identifying and solving an educational problem(s) have appeared in professional journals. Thus, action research is gaining recognition by policy makers and educators as a tool for change However, this growing concept has not yet caught up in…

Who wins in sociolinguistic research undertaken in minority ethnolinguistic communities? This is a question that might at first glance seem an odd one. In fact, however, the concept of winning--with the concomitant themes of games and gamesmanship, plays and players, gains and losses, rewards and punishments, and so on--is an apposite one wherever…

The study reported in this article is a part of a large-scale study investigating syntactic complexity in second language (L2) oral data in commonly taught foreign languages (English, German, Japanese, and Spanish; Ortega, Iwashita, Rabie, & Norris, in preparation). In this article, preliminary findings of the analysis of the Japanese data are…

This teacher-researcher/university-researcher collaboration focuses on teaching and learning in untracked English classes, but has implications for all classrooms where students have different needs. We primarily examine the teacher-researcher's (Delp's) eighth-grade untracked English class but also include data from a group of beginning teachers…

This unconventional essay is the (slightly modified) transcript of the question-and-answer period of an AERA conference session on the topic of paradigm proliferation. Through responses to the discussants prepared questions and audience members' comments and questions, each panelist extends and defends the ideas put forward in her or his paper and…

This article provides a critical account of conducting focus groups with gay and lesbian youth. Drawing on the insights of queer theory it attempts to reframe issues around sexual diversity by examining the heteronormalizing processes at work during these focus groups. This analysis is undertaken through a "study of the limits" of the…

The meaning of university and, subsequently, academics' working conditions are rapidly changing as knowledge economy and globalisation discourses continue to deepen across the Western world. Higher education and research agendas are increasingly staged in the discursive universe of knowledge economy language: common strategies and harmonisation…

Practitioner research is defined as systematic inquiry-based efforts directed towards creating and extending professional knowledge and associated understandings of professional practice. A review of "primary research" articles published in the "Australian Journal of Early Childhood" revealed that only a small number involved…

As readers, children with dyslexia are vulnerable to becoming academically, socially, and emotionally detached from education. Traditional educational practices tend to use quantitative measures to diagnose children to better serve their needs and researchers, who study students with special needs often focus on a deficit model that quantify just…