In John Raven's "Diving in Where Angels Fear to Tread: Pre-Requisites to Evidence-Based Interventions," he outlines several critical failings in which social scientists bear a responsibility for potentially a great deal of damage toward children, society, and notably, the planet itself. The nature of the damage appears to be one of…

One of the major claims of the report of University of California's Task Force on Standardized Testing is that SAT and ACT scores are superior to high-school grades in predicting how students will perform at UC. This finding has been widely reported in the news media and cited in several editorials favoring UC's continued use of SAT/ACT scores in…

Purpose: Trust is a key component of successful schools. Although scholars widely agree that trust is multifaceted, there is less agreement about the number and nature of these factors. In the October 2016 issue of "Educational Administration Quarterly," C. M. Adams and Miskell (see EJ1112413) argued that their Teacher Trust of District…

The importance of witnessing broken narratives and somehow writing or representing these is matched by the challenges associated with trying to do this within a context of normativity and expected academic practice. We have to be convincing in our work, both in terms of rigour and dependability but also in terms of the way we make sense of the…

This study was conducted to determine the problems faced by graduate students when conducting scientific research and to make suggestions for solving these problems. The research model was a case study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants in the study with questions about the problems encountered during scientific research…

This special issue marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark Pygmalion experiment (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). It offers contributions from across the globe, attesting to universal features of teacher expectancy effects. Reviews of this history underscore controversy, advances, and few intervention studies. Empirical studies emphasise…

Ainsworth et al.'s paper "Sources of Bias in Outcome Assessment in Randomised Controlled Trials: A Case Study" examines alternative accounts for a large difference in effect size between 2 outcomes in the same intervention evaluation. It argues that the probable explanation relates to masking: Only one outcome measure was administered by…

Snowball sampling is frequently advocated and employed by qualitative social researchers. Under certain circumstances, however, it is prone to faltering and even failure. Drawing on two research projects where the snowball failed to roll, the paper identifies reasons for this stasis. It goes on to argue that there are alternative forms of…

Engaging non-conventional gatekeepers such as the police presents both promises and perils. Although studies have relied on police data for researching suicide and other sensitive topics in Africa, there is a paucity of literature that explores or reflects on police gatekeeping and its research implications. This paper presents authors'…

Bayesian item response theory (IRT) modeling stages include (a) specifying the IRT likelihood model, (b) specifying the parameter prior distributions, (c) obtaining the posterior distribution, and (d) making appropriate inferences. The latter stage, and the focus of this research, includes model criticism. Choice of priors with the posterior…

Although CALL is still an emerging area of study in many countries, several studies have shown the significant contribution of these countries to the development of CALL worldwide, among which Iran is no exception. Contrary to the vast number of review studies on how this interdisciplinary area of study has been developed at the international…

An advantage of well-designed survey research is that, typically, it yields large volumes of quantitative and qualitative data. A key challenge researchers face is mining and reporting these data appropriately and promptly to inform research publications and presentations. When mixed methods are employed, and researchers attempt to master computer…

Impact of science is one of the most important topics in scientometrics. Recent developments show a fundamental change in impact measurements from impact on science to impact on society. Since impact measurement is currently in a state of far reaching changes, this paper describes recent developments and facing problems in this area. For that, the…

This paper provides the first mixed methods theory of causation. According to the theory, the researcher must carefully construct a causal mosaic for each research study, articulating what is causally relevant given his/her research questions, purposes, method(s), methodology(ies), paradigms(s), and resources. To engage in this "mixed…

In this commentary from Issue 14, n3, authors John Cadogan and Nick Lee applaud the paper by Aguirre-Urreta, Rönkkö, and Marakas "Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives", 14(3), 75-97 (2016), since their explanations and simulations work toward demystifying causal indicator models, which are often used by scholars…