Research paradigms constitute views that a researcher holds about (a) the nature of reality and what they can know about it (ontology); (b) the potential influence of their existing ideas and values on what they want to know, how they try to get to know, and criteria they use to make judgments about knowledge (epistemology); and (c) appropriate…

Scoping reviews are increasingly used in health professions education to synthesize research and scholarship, and to report on the depth and breadth of the literature on a given topic. In this Perspective, we argue that the philosophical stance scholars adopt during the execution of a scoping review, including the meaning they attribute to…

Masters and PhD student researchers in the social sciences are often required to explore and explain their positionality, as, in the social world, it is recognized that their ontological and epistemological beliefs influence their research. Yet novice researchers often struggle with identifying their positionality. This paper explores researcher…

The medical education (Med Ed) research community characterises itself as drawing on the insights, methods, and knowledge from multiple disciplines and research domains (e.g. Sociology, Anthropology, Education, Humanities, Psychology). This common view of Med Ed research is echoed and reinforced by the narrative used by leading Med Ed departments…

The world's third largest producer of scientific research, Germany, is the origin of the research university and the independent, extra-university research institute. Its dual-pillar research policy differentiates these organizational forms functionally: universities specialize in advanced research-based teaching; institutes specialize intensely…

The incorporation of evidence derived from multiple research designs into one single synthesis can enhance the utility of systematic reviews making them more worthwhile, useful, and insightful. Methodological guidance for mixed-methods synthesis continues to emerge and evolve but broadly involves a sequential, parallel, or convergent approach…

Secondary data analysis in educational research has been an established research method for many years. Yet, few publications outline the "how to" of undertaking the process. This paper presents an analysis framework suitable for undertaking secondary data analysis within the field of education. The framework is a modification and an…

Recurrent pain and school failures are common problems in children visiting the school nurses office. The overall aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between recurrent pain and academic achievement in school-aged children. Literature was searched in seven electronic databases and in relevant bibliographies. Study…

This article discusses estimation of average treatment effects for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using grouped administrative data to help improve data access. The focus is on design-based estimators, derived using the building blocks of experiments, that are conducive to grouped data for a wide range of RCT designs, including clustered and…

Education policy makers must make decisions under uncertainty. Thus, how they think about risks has important implications for resource allocation, interventions, innovation, and the information that is provided to the public. In this policy brief we illustrate how the standard of evidence for making decisions can be quite inconsistently applied,…

The requirement for literature searches that identify studies for inclusion in systematic reviews should be systematic, explicit, and reproducible extends, at least by implication, to other types of literature review. However, realist reviews commonly require literature searches that challenge systematic reporting; searches are iterative and…

Background: Given the comprehensively documented literacy crisis in South Africa and the gaps in what is known about the effective teaching of reading and writing in schools, high-quality literacy research is a priority. Objectives: This article evaluates South African research from two annotated bibliographies on reading in African languages at…

Student voice is a concept and a set of approaches that position students alongside credentialed educators as critics and creators of educational practice. Student voice and student agency are closely linked when school stakeholders connect the sound of students speaking with students having the power to influence practices and analyses of…

In this paper, I explore how mathematics education research is always already entangled with and in ontological, epistemological, and ethical considerations--that is, philosophical considerations--of the researcher (or research team) from beginning to end. The danger in too much of the existing mathematics education research, however, is limited…

This innovative guide is now in a revised and expanded second edition with an even stronger applied focus. It helps educators harness the potential of single-case design (SCD) as a critical element of data-based decision making in a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). The authors present simple and complex SCDs and demonstrate their use to…