This paper reflects on the use of methods in higher education research. My point of departure is that it appears that higher education scholars -- publishing their work in what we generally see as the relevant higher education journals of our field -- make use of a limited set of methods. Whereas there may be good reasons to select certain…

This article presents the findings from a review of contemporary scholarly work on teacher leadership, with a focus on the international evidence concerning the relationship between teacher leadership and school/system change. The PRISMA approach (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) was applied to review…

Diffractive ethnography is a divergent methodology in educational research that seeks to enact posthuman thinking, in particular, the concept of diffraction as a methodological approach, through the application of ethnographic methods. In this paper, we consider how we can rethink the humanistic tendencies of qualitative methodologies in…

Canada does not have a national system wide assessment of the socioeconomic impacts of academic research. We do not have a Research Excellence Framework such as in the United Kingdom. Yet Canadian researchers, funders and institutions are interested in research impact, particularly the methods and processes for generating impacts to complement…

This paper describes the development of a bibliometric strength, potential and risk analysis tool, and its applications for research strategy and evaluation. We focus specifically on the motivation, organizational strategic needs, the development and evaluation of the tool. Furthermore, we highlight the co-creation process of the tool and discuss…

The neurocognitive mechanisms underlying prevalent learning disorders, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and their comorbidity, remain unclear and are the subject of ongoing debate. The core-deficit hypothesis has long been the dominant theory explaining these mechanisms across various learning disorders. However, this hypothesis faces criticism for…

Rapid approaches are essential when resources are limited and when findings are required in real-time to inform decisions. Limitations exist in their design and implementation, which can lead to a reduced level of trust in findings. This review sought to map the methods used across rapid evaluations and research to facilitate timeliness and…

Fit indices are descriptive measures that can help evaluate how well a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model fits a researcher's data. In multigroup models, before between-group comparisons are made, fit indices may be used to evaluate measurement invariance by assessing the degree to which multiple groups' data are consistent with increasingly…

In qualitative comparative analysis, as with all methods, there is a question about how many cases are needed to make an analysis robust. In deciding on the number of cases, a key consideration is the number of conditions to be analyzed. I suggest that adding cases is preferable to dropping conditions if there are too many conditions relative to…

Using AI as a research assistant promises to provide significant benefits to researchers in terms of time-saving, efficiency, and reduced workload. However, as is well known, AI generated content and outputs are unreliable. Hence human supervision and oversight of the outputs of AI are necessary to perform AI-assisted research ethically. This…

The study of mobility effects is an important subject of study in sociology. Empirical investigations of individual mobility effects, however, have been hindered by one fundamental limitation, the unidentifiability of mobility effects when origin and destination are held constant. Given this fundamental limitation, we propose to reconceptualize…

Missing data presents a significant challenge in Educational Data Mining (EDM). Imputation techniques aim to reconstruct missing data while preserving critical information in datasets for more accurate analysis. Although imputation techniques have gained attention in various fields in recent years, their use for addressing missing data in…

There has been a proliferation of qualitative approaches to researching education. While this has resulted in the construction of a rich tapestry of knowledge about education, it has also resulted in disparate research ideas, processes and practices, and created tensions relating to what constitutes rigorous qualitative research in education. As…

Western knowledge systems are increasingly scrutinised for their colonial roots and their dominance over Indigenous perspectives. In response, Indigenous, First Nations, and Pacific scholars are actively challenging these colonial epistemologies in higher education through research and community engagement, carving out spaces that honour and…

The realist review/synthesis has become an increasingly prominent methodological approach to evidence synthesis that can inform policy and practice. While there are publication standards and guidelines for the conduct of realist reviews, published reviews often provide minimal detail regarding how they have conducted some methodological steps.…