This paper scrutinizes the increasing trend of using international large-scale assessment (ILSA) data for causal inferences in educational research, arguing that such inferences are often tenuous. We explore the complexities of causality within ILSAs, highlighting the methodological constraints that challenge the validity of causal claims derived…

Focusing on systematic observation, one of the most potent methods of studying teaching quality, represents one of the numerous contributions of Daryl Siedentop to the profession. While he had a clear focus on issues of validity and reliability concerning systematic observation, over the past decades, attention to such issues appears to have…

This article provides a conceptual framework for considering both the theoretical and methodological factors that underpin the successful validation of a competency framework. Drawing on educational assessment literature, this article argues that a valid competency framework relates to an interpretive judgement of the credibility of the claims…

Purpose: This current paper attempts to bring more light to the current debate of understanding phenomenological research methods, in order to clarify the interpretive phenomenological inquiry with Heidegger's philosophy of phenomenology. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uniquely presents the three distinctions of Heideggerian thoughts in…

International large-scale assessments such as PISA or PIAAC have started to provide public or scientific use files for log data; that is, events, event-related attributes and timestamps of test-takers' interactions with the assessment system. Log data and the process indicators derived from it can be used for many purposes. However, the intended…

Since the early 2000s, the proliferation of cameras, whether in mobile phones or CCTV, led to a sharp increase in visual recordings of human behavior. This vast pool of data enables new approaches to analyzing situational dynamics. Application is both qualitative and quantitative and ranges widely in fields such as sociology, psychology,…

Advances in technology have given the learning analytics (LA) area further potential to enhance the learning process by using methods and techniques that harness educational data. However, the lack of guidelines on what should be taken into considerations during application of LA hinders its full adoption. Therefore, this article investigates the…

Immersive virtual reality (VR) carries important potential, both for the creation of scientific knowledge and also for its communication. This is particularly important for studies of human spatial cognition, where psychologists now possess the power to combine the scale and fidelity of the real world with the malleability and control of the…

Randomized controlled trials are a special case of designs using an unbiased instrument to take care of confounders even if they are unmeasured or unknown. Another example of studies using instrumental variables is the Mendelian experiment and Directed Acyclic Graphs show the power of such designs to enhance the internal validity. It is argued…

Drawing upon his experience, more than 60 years ago, as a psychometric support person to a very special teacher of brain damaged children, the author of this article reflects on the productive use of educational assessments and data from them to educate - assessment in the service of learning. Findings from the Gordon Commission on the Future of…

Over the past 30 years, qualitative research has emerged as a widely accepted alternative to the quantitative paradigm for performing research in educational communications and technology. As the new paradigm has evolved, it has spawned a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological techniques that have both increased its potential…

The archive is a cultural institution that creates a framework for the social and collective memory and as such is one of the collection of knowledge institutions that not only preserves and classifies "texts" but uses them to re-create collective memory and sometimes to invent cultural histories. Like all knowledge institutions, the…

This paper argues that key findings from computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research need to be replicated to permit the construction of a valid and reliable evidence-base which can inform the design of future CALL software and activities, together with language teachers' decisions about their adoption. Through the critical examination of…

There has been much discussion about quantitative and qualitative approaches to research in different disciplines. In the behavioural and social sciences, these two paradigms are compared to reveal their relative strengths and weaknesses. But the debate about both traditions has commonly taken place in academic books. It is hard to find an article…

In response to the wide-scale proliferation of "the cone of learning"--a fanciful retention chart confounded with Dale's Cone of Experience--the authors make four major claims debunking this fantasy and provide documentary evidence to support these claims. The first claim is that the data in the mythical retention chart do not make…