This colloquium brings information about a second cycle of OECD's International Early Learning and Well-being Study (IELS) to the early childhood community, and offers a further critique of the approach to comparative research that the IELS embodies.

Studies of the grant proposal tend to conflate academic research grant proposals with other kinds of nonprofit grant proposal genres, even though research and nonprofit grant proposals have different audiences and goals. To address this gap, this study draws on the Aristotelian concept of "topoi" (or typical arguments) and uses corpus…

We develop a structural after measurement (SAM) method for structural equation models (SEMs) that accommodates missing data. The results show that the proposed SAM missing data estimator outperforms conventional full information (FI) estimators in terms of convergence, bias, and root-mean-square-error in small-to-moderate samples or large samples…

Comparison studies conducted to determine which instructional interventions are most efficient for teaching discrete behaviors to individuals with disabilities are potentially valuable, although some threats to internal validity may be more likely in these studies. Studies included in this review typically met common internal validity standards,…

Experimental studies are often employed to test the effectiveness of teaching innovations such as new pedagogy, curriculum, or learning resources. This article offers guidance on good practice in developing research designs, and in drawing conclusions from published reports. Random control trials potentially support the use of statistical…

This paper provides a critical review of Processing Instruction (PI). This type of instructional option was specifically designed to help second/foreign language (L2) learners grasp meaning manifested in the use of particular grammatical forms in a target language effectively through the provision of input. In this way, PI attempts to help…

Increased attention on "what works" in education has led to an emphasis on developing policy from evidence based on comparing and combining a particular statistical summary of intervention studies: the standardised effect size. It is assumed that this statistical summary provides an estimate of the educational impact of interventions and…

Second language (L2) research relies heavily and increasingly on ANOVA (analysis of variance)-based results as a means to advance theory and practice. This fact alone should merit some reflection on the utility and value of ANOVA. It is possible that we could use this procedure more appropriately and, as argued here, other analyses such as…

Throughout the years, there appears to be an increase in Problem Based Learning applications in education; and Problem Based Learning related research areas. The main aim of this research is to underline the fundamentals (basic elements) of Problem Based Learning, investigate the dimensions of research approached to PBL oriented areas (with a look…

In 1881, Donald MacAlister posed a problem in the "Educational Times" that remains relevant today. The problem centers on the statistical evidence for the effectiveness of a treatment based on a comparison between two proportions. A brief historical sketch is followed by a discussion of two default Bayesian solutions, one based on a…

Cost-effectiveness analysis is rarely used in education. When it is used, it often fails to meet methodological standards, especially with regard to cost measurement. Although there are occasional criticisms of these failings, we believe that it is useful to provide a listing of the more common concerns and how they might be addressed. Based upon…

The statistics used in education research are based on central trends such as the mean or standard deviation, discarding outliers. This paper adopts another viewpoint that has emerged in statistics, called extreme value theory (EVT). EVT claims that the bulk of normal distribution is comprised mainly of uninteresting variations while the most…

Recent years have shown a rise in the application of serious games used by organizations to help trainees learn and practice job related skills (Muntean, 2011). Some sources have projected a continued growth in the development and application of video games for novel purposes (Sanders, 2015). Despite the increasing use of video games for workplace…

A common argument leveled against charter schools is that they attract the most motivated and intelligent students from already struggling public schools. Marcus Winters seeks to examine this claim, known as "cream-skimming," by comparing the performance of New York City's (NYC) charter middle schools with a set of traditional selective…

This commentary begins by summarizing the five contributions to this special issue and briefly recapping the background to the topic of student learning in higher education. Narrative and systematic reviews are compared, and the relative value of different bibliographic databases in the context of systematic reviews is assessed. The importance of…