Educational research outcomes frequently rely on an assumption that measurement metrics have interval-level properties. While most investigators know enough to be suspicious of interval-level claims, and in some cases even question their findings given such doubts, there is a lack of understanding regarding the measurement conditions that create…

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.

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,…

Data analysis is a significant methodological component when conducting quantitative education studies. Guidelines for conducting data analyses in quantitative education studies are common but often underemphasize four important methodological components impacting the validity of inferences: quality of constructed measures, proper handling of…

This paper addresses the wicked problem of measuring the productivity of learning and teaching in higher education. We show how fundamental validity issues and difficulties identified in educational productivity research point to the need for a qualitatively different framework when considering the entire question. We describe the work that needs…

Education entails conflicting perspectives about its subject matter. In the late 1980s, the conflict developed into a war between interpretive and causal paradigms. Did the confrontation result in a balance between these warring sides? We use text analysis to identify research trends in 137,024 dissertation abstracts from 1980 to 2010 and relate…

This article describes issues in measuring school contexts with an eye toward understanding students' experiences and outcomes. I begin with an overview of the conceptual underpinnings related to measuring contexts, briefly describe the initiatives at the National Center for Education Statistics to measure school contexts, and identify possible…

In this article, the authors review International Large-Scale Assessment (ILSA)-based research over the last several decades, with specific attention on cross-national analysis of mean differences between and variation within countries in mathematics education. They discuss the role of sampling design and "opportunity to learn" (OTL)…

Instrumental variable estimators hold the promise of enabling researchers to estimate the effects of educational treatments that are not (or cannot be) randomly assigned but that may be affected by randomly assigned interventions. Examples of the use of instrumental variables in such cases are increasingly common in educational and social science…

The call for practice on the basis of evidence is slowly impacting the link between research and practice. Accompanying the call for evidence-based practice, concerns have been raised about constructing research questions that address the reality of applied settings, as well as arguments for including additional measures to ensure the internal and…

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

The activities of a research working group are described. The investigators from several institutions coordinate their work on space and geometry. Underlying assumptions of the group and issues faced by it are described. (SD)

Compares two meta-analyses of instructional interventions for students with learning disabilities conducted by Gersten and Baker, and Swanson, focusing on issues of grouping and reporting such studies and of treating differing outcome measures. Considers the identification of important instructional components in both meta-analyses. (JPB)

There is a need for clarity regarding different research strategies in order to assess the relative contribution of each. Using the framework of the Facet Design Technique (FDT) for problem structuring, eight general research strategies are identified as they relate to measurement fidelity, representativeness of units, and treatment…

States that the efficiency of computer-supported learning cannot be substantiated without difficulty. Explores basic problems of the measurement of school achievement from a theory of (1) measurement and (2) the psychology of learning. Examines the form of "achievement" as a construct of measurement and the consequences of developing a design of…