This paper reviewed the research literature on graduation rates in U.S. high schools to evaluate and assess the findings. The methodology employed was to determine the measuring method that researchers used in reaching their findings. The strengths and weaknesses of the method employed were then analyzed. Flaws and inaccuracies were examined and…

In my 15th and final year as JRRE editor, I identify methodological and substantive shortcomings in the rural education research literature and, in turn, suggest strategies for improvement. I structure my observations around the following considerations: describing the rural context of research, making the rural argument, framing the research…

This commentary on "Motherhood in the Shadow of Incest" by Rachel Lev-Wiesel, is divided into three sections. In the first section, this author addresses the issue of the role of mothers in incest. Faller contends that, with regard to research findings on the role of mothers' own sexual victimization in her child's experience, previous research…

Less than a decade ago, Howe et al. (1998) attempted to demonstrate the lack of scientific support for the concept of innate talent (IT). Most ([approximately equal to] 75%) of the 30 commentators to that target article clearly disagreed with their core position. In spite of Ericsson's current efforts to counter or circumvent the major objections…

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis is being used increasingly to examine the memory processes underlying recognition memory. The authors discuss the methodological issues involved in conducting and analyzing ROC results, describe the various models that have been developed to account for these results, review the behavioral empirical…

Many have elaborated on the potential of virtual reality (VR) in learning. This article attempts at organizing the literature in this issue in order to better identify indicators that can account for future valid trends, and seeks to bring to attention how authors who wrote about the future of VR in education confused futures' terms and produced…

This paper introduces an empirical strategy to estimate dynamic treatment effects in randomized trials that provide treatment in multiple stages and in which various noncompliance problems arise such as attrition and selective transitions between treatment and control groups. Our approach is applied to the highly influential four year randomized…

Rapidly declining response rates and the associated threat of nonresponse bias call into question the validity of data obtained through telephone surveys, a tool often used in evaluation. This article explores changes in nonresponse bias over time by examining three data points (1991, 1996, and 2002) from an annual household telephone survey…

This paper is a report of the replication of a seminal study on cognitive presence in computer mediated conferencing (CMC) by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001). A comparison of cognitive presence coding by three different researchers is also demonstrated. The study re-ignites debates about what constitutes the segment of CMC data to be coded…

This article introduces the special issue, which focuses on the ways in which educational institutions in Europe and North America are responding to the growing number of children of immigrants entering schools and universities. It discusses the ways in which the needs of children of immigrants differ from those of native-born students, and the…

This article explores how the tensions that grow out of being a researcher in my community of queer Asian Americans lead to the formulation of a different kind of ethnographic approach. A hybrid notion of identity can require and inform a hybrid or poststructural ethnographic practice. This hybridized research method draws upon theoretical strands…

Two studies of the formation of pupils' subjectivities within the Danish school and educational system in the period 1945-2005 create the framework for a methodological discussion of how subjectivities in educational history can be studied. Both studies use qualitative interviews as a way of studying subject formations in educational history. This…

In this paper, I map important "messy" elements that I learned from my five-month small-scale research project, one that was designed around pivotal works on online social research. I used computers and the Internet with Minan, a young man living in Guinea, West Africa, in order to examine his perceptions surrounding the value of these…

The Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education was founded in 2003 with five collaborating institutions. A multi-institutional, multi-year grant offers many opportunities for the demands of reality to interfere with design goals. In particular, at Colorado School of Mines (CSM) student demographics required adjustment of the original APS…

The author was invited to prepare a commentary in response to the Lev-Wiesel manuscript titled "Intergenerational Transmission of Sexual Abuse? Motherhood in the Shadow of Incest." Lev-Wiesel's stated intent in the study was to understand an important issue, namely how is intra-familial sexual abuse perpetuated across successive generations. This…