Rapid approaches are essential when resources are limited and when findings are required in real-time to inform decisions. Limitations exist in their design and implementation, which can lead to a reduced level of trust in findings. This review sought to map the methods used across rapid evaluations and research to facilitate timeliness and…

There is currently no universally adopted definition of rural either by government entities or by rural special education researchers. Yet, the replicability, generalizability, transferability, and validity of rural special education research is dependent upon the definition of rural researchers' use to situate their work. Examining the…

Children's fuzziness leads to increased variance in the data, data loss, and high dropout rates in developmental studies. This study investigated the importance of 20 factors on the person (child, caregiver, experimenter) and situation (task, method, time, and date) level for the data quality as indicated via the number of valid trials in 11…

Pre-registration refers to the practice of researchers preparing a time-stamped document describing the plans for a study. This open research tool is used to improve transparency, so that readers can evaluate the extent to which the researcher adhered to their original plans and tested their theory appropriately. In the current study, we conducted…

This study critically examines the biases and methodological shortcomings in studies comparing deaf and hearing populations, demonstrating their implications for both the reliability and ethics of research in deaf education. Upon reviewing the 20 most-cited deaf-hearing comparison studies, we identified recurring fallacies such as the presumption…

Introduction: Missing data are bound to occur in education intervention research. Reasons vary but always have the consequence of reducing sample sizes and can, under certain conditions, seriously bias estimated intervention effects. A wide array of methods have been developed for handling missing data (Enders, 2023). Whereas older approaches…

The methodological controversy surrounding ordinal outcome data has posed a distinct challenge to the conceptualization, design, and conduct of research in the social and behavioral sciences for more than 75 years. Accordingly, this study sought to supply a comprehensive and multidisciplinary perspective of the debate and in so doing lay the…

Introduction: The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews rigorous research on educational interventions with a goal of identifying "what works" and making that information accessible to educators and policymakers. In rating the quality of causal research, the WWC has historically prioritized internal validity over external validity. One…

School leadership research literature has a large number of widely used constructs. Could fewer constructs bring more clarity? This study evaluates construct content validity, defined as the extent to which a measure's items reflect a theoretical content domain, in school leadership literature. To do so, we reviewed 29 articles that used Teaching…

We conducted a multi-pronged investigation of different types of reporting bias in autism early childhood intervention research. First, we investigated the prevalence of reporting failures of completed trials registered on clinicaltrials.gov, and found that only 7% of registered trials were updated with results on the registration platform and…

Evidence synthesis findings depend on the assumption that the included studies follow good clinical practice and results are not fabricated or false. Studies which are problematic due to scientific misconduct, poor research practice, or honest error may distort evidence synthesis findings. Authors of evidence synthesis need transparent mechanisms…

Thematic analysis is a methodology with wide use in content analysis and field work through interviews, observations, and focus groups. Despite popularity with researchers, there are several questions and problems with the methodology. There was an absence in exploration and explanation of the methods and hidden steps in thematic analysis. Using a…

Outside of education, many academic disciplines developed and promulgated checklists to evaluate the quality of qualitative studies. This article used an embedded mixed methods approach in three stages: development of a conceptual framework reviewing 62 guidelines; a content analysis of key areas of the guidelines; and review of dissertations to…

Sport officials are crucial members of sport. Researchers have studied their roles numerous times, with results often informing sport procedures (e.g., athlete order in artistic sports). As the research on sport officiating spans five decades and several topics of interest, it is important that researchers periodically synthesize the literature.…

Context: A perennial problem in applied statistics is the inability to justify strong claims about cause-and-effect relationships without full knowledge of the mechanism determining selection into treatment. Few research designs other than the well-implemented random assignment study meet this requirement. Researchers have proposed partial…