This paper provides an overview of the recursive process of initiating an action research project on literacy for students-at-risk in a Canadian urban elementary school. As this paper demonstrates, this requires development of a school-wide framework, which frames the action research project and desired outcomes, and a shared ownership of this…

Infants' abilities to discriminate native and non-native phonemes have been extensively investigated in monolingual learners, demonstrating a transition from language-general to language-specific sensitivities over the first year after birth. However, these studies have mostly been limited to the study of vowels and consonants in monolingual…

Educational research focused on questioning techniques used in classroom settings is quite extensive. However, research regarding a teacher's ability to generate research questions is virtually nonexistent. Posing research or "testable" questions is a key component of inquiry-based instruction, and teachers must be able to both generate…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Play Practice (PP) instruction on the performance of table tennis skills. Fifty-six college students in four intact classes were taught by two instructors using PP and Skill-focused Instruction (SI). A nonequivalent control/comparison group experimental design with pre and post measures was…

In this paper, the authors examine some of the ways that different types of non-equivalent comparison groups can be used to strengthen causal inferences based on regression discontinuity design (RDD). First, they consider a design that incorporates pre-test data on assignment scores and outcomes that were collected either before the treatment…

Efforts to identify and support credible causal claims have received intense interest in the research community, particularly over the past few decades. In this paper, we focus on the use of statistical procedures designed to support causal claims for a treatment or intervention when the response variable of interest is dichotomous. We identify…

Longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) can be a basis for making prescriptive statements on educational practice and offers yields over "traditional" statistical techniques under the general linear model. The extent to which prescriptive statements can be made will rely on the appropriate accommodation of key elements of research design,…

Qualitative interviewing is a flexible and powerful tool to capture the voices and the ways people make meaning of their experience Learning to conduct semi-structure interviews requires the following six stages: (a) selecting the type of interview; (b) establishing ethical guidelines, (c) crafting the interview protocol; (d) conducting and…

We present a Monte Carlo simulation of a cylindrical luminescent volume and a typical lens-detector system. The results of this simulation yield a graphically simple picture of the regions within the cylindrical volume from which this system detects light. Because the cylindrical volume permits large angles of incidence, we use a modification of…

The propensity score is the probability of treatment assignment conditional on observed baseline characteristics. The propensity score allows one to design and analyze an observational (nonrandomized) study so that it mimics some of the particular characteristics of a randomized controlled trial. In particular, the propensity score is a balancing…

The beginning of a new editorship for the "Annals" provides a good opportunity to re-engage contributors and the readership in a conversation about the principles and standards for manuscripts submitted to the "Annals". In turn, the hope is that this conversation might help to enhance our research community and therefore the "Annals"'…

The authors investigated the relationship between religious and spiritual values and moral commitment in marriage to further inform marriage and family counselors about the nature of committed relationships. Using a qualitative research design, they examined individuals' perceptions of moral commitment in their marriage and how their religious and…

Netnography (Kozinets, 2010) is an ethnographic approach to study communities that exist primarily online. Engaging in online participant observation, the netnographer connects to the online community through a computer screen, and the field is located inside the screen. Although it has been used in marketing research extensively, netnography is a…

When a sexting message spreads to an unintended audience, it can adversely affect the victim's reputation. Sexting incidents constitute a potential school safety risk. Just as with other types of adolescent risk behavior, school nurses might have to initiate the first response when a sexting episode arises, but a school nurse's role goes…

This study replicates and extends a 2004 content analysis of three major higher education journals. The original study examined the methodological characteristics of all published research in these journals from 1996 to 2000, recommending that higher education programs adjust their graduate training to better match the heavily quantitative and…