The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Standards Briefs explain the rules the WWC uses to evaluate the quality of studies for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. An aspect of a study is considered a confounding factor if it is not possible to tell whether the difference in outcomes is due to the intervention, the confounding factor, or both.…

Whether the goal is to identify and describe trends and variation in populations, create new measures of key phenomena, or describe samples in studies aimed at identifying causal effects, description plays a critical role in the scientific process in general and education research in particular. Descriptive analysis identifies patterns in data to…

The increased use of action research in counseling training and professional publications provides an opportunity to bridge the research-practitioner gap that has plagued the profession for decades. In this article, action research is defined, and special considerations that counselor researchers need to address when designing, conducting, and…

The Internet lets us share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. We take advantage of this revolutionary opportunity when we make our work "open access": digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open access is made possible by the Internet and copyright-holder…

This paper grew out of a presentation at the "Research for LIS Practitioners Workshop" organised by the ALIA Research Committees and held at the State Library of New South Wales. The workshop was a satellite event of the Information Online Conference. The goal of the workshop was to encourage practitioner research and publication in the…

The use of numerical/quantitative data in qualitative research studies and reports has been controversial. Prominent qualitative researchers such as Howard Becker and Martyn Hammersley have supported the inclusion of what Becker called "quasi-statistics": simple counts of things to make statements such as "some," "usually," and "most" more…

This guide is designed to help researchers make sure that their research reports include enough information about study measures so that readers can assess the quality of the study's methods and results. The guide also provides examples of write-ups about measures and suggests resources for learning more about these topics. The guide assumes…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to give ideas and suggestions to avoid some typical problems of qualitative articles. The aim is not to debate quality in qualitative research but to indicate some practical solutions. Design/methodology/approach: The paper discusses the design of qualitative research and the structure of a qualitative article…

Our research in statistical cognition uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. A mixed method approach makes our research more comprehensive, and provides us with new directions, unexpected insights, and alternative explanations for previously established concepts. In this paper, we review four statistical cognition studies that used mixed…

Recognising the existence of customer-supplier roles and relationships in the performance of research can lead to an improvement in the management, and hence delivery, of research. Research, especially university-based research, is often managed with a light touch, with the researchers operating independently, and neither their institution nor…

This book fills an important gap in qualitative research literature by specifically addressing the fast-growing practice of qualitative master's studies and doctoral dissertations in colleges and universities throughout the world. Many students struggle with turning qualitative research projects into a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation…

Explains the link between educational broadcasting and information technology. Some aspects of knowledge organization for information retrieval are explored and illustrated with reference to the University of Aberdeen's Educational Broadcasting Database. A pilot exercise includes communication of user-selected data from the database to…

Review of empirical research evaluating use of video technology in teacher training situations focuses on the demonstration and feedback phases of microteaching, discrimination training, and videotape feedback for teachers in actual school classrooms. The value of video technology in clinical and peer teacher supervision and naturalistic…

Presents five research designs--sequential analysis, value added analysis, nonequivalent dependent variables, regression discontinuity, cohort design--for studying computer-based teaching methods when a randomized two-group design is impractical; provides examples of studies employing these designs and decision flowchart; and discusses selection…

This article focuses on five quantitative indicators for patents and scientific literature. These indicators characterize Japan as a technological powerhouse and in an expanding but far less powerful scientific position. Several tables and graphs are provided. (YP)