Intended to guide scholars who are new to qualitative research, this methods brief focuses mostly on what reviewers look for in manuscripts submitted for publication. The author acknowledges that reviewers' preferences likely reflect their theoretical perspectives, research-oriented coursework, mentors, and research and writing experiences. The…

This paper explores the dynamics of a research partnership between a practicing clinician/research and 34 West Virginia high school students participating in a precollege STEM intervention program. The collaboration provided a more diverse study sample to the clinician for examining attitudes about knee osteoarthritis in adults over 40. It…

In 1999, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded funds to the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University to conduct an external evaluation of the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. ATE, a federally mandated program designed to increase the number and quality of skilled technicians in the U.S. workforce, has funded over 346…

The purpose of this study is to extend the work of Spybrook and Raudenbush (2009) and examine how the research designs and sample sizes changed from the planning phase to the implementation phase in the first wave of studies funded by IES. The authors examine the impact of the changes in terms of the changes in the precision of the study from the…

E-learning researchers face considerable challenges in creating meaningful and generalizable studies due to the complex nature of this dynamic training medium. Our experience in conducting workplace e-learning research led us to create this guide for planning research on e-learning. We share the unanticipated complications we encountered in our…

Over the past few years, the focus group method has assumed a very important role as a method for collecting qualitative data in social and behavioural science research. This article elucidates theoretical and practical problems and prospects associated with the use of focus groups as a qualitative research method in social and behavioural science…

Fieldwork remains the mainstay in the study of geography and in the analysis of the environmental processes. However, an in-depth understanding of the environmental and geographical processes requires extensive as well as intensive fieldwork that involves time and substantial effort, both of which may pose a problem within a given curriculum time.…

As part of the evaluation of schools participating in the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, a site researcher is to visit each participating site twice a year to collect data for CSRD formative evaluation. To prepare site researchers for their evaluation activities, a training and orientation session was held for 18…

As part of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, schools participated in the Formative Evaluation Process for School Improvement (FEPSI), a package of services mainly provided during two visits each school year. This document reports on the evaluation of training for Georgia educators involved in FEPSI as site researchers.…

This report provides information on feedback from a consultant panel concerning the initial phase of the ethnographic component of the multimethod evaluation of the Head Start Bilingual Bicultural Curriculum Development Project. Adjustments made as a result of feedback are indicated. The document is organized into several sections. First, a brief…

Action research in the Cobb County (Georgia) school district is described. This research is being conducted in the district under three main approaches: (1) co-researcher projects addressing central level issues; (2) district-wide projects; and (3) school-focused action research, including minigrants to teachers. The first three…

THE NATURE OF THE RESEARCH ACTIVITIES OF 56 PROJECTS WAS REVIEWED TO FIND WHY USEFUL NEW KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROBLEMS WAS NOT RESULTING FROM THE PROGRAMS. ALSO ANALYZED WAS THE UTILITY OF FOLLOWUP STUDIES FOR GAINING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PROJECTS. BOTH SUBJECTS OF INQUIRY WERE CONSIDERED AGAINST THE…

Guidelines are presented to help foundations and others ensure that the activities they fund treat women and girls fairly and address issues concerning women. Formal impact statements can help foundations examine their grant programs by asking a series of questions about: applicants' commitment to ending discrimination; the access of women and…

The movement toward integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods within the same study has been most evident in social policy research. Four major approaches to integrating can be identified in recent studies. The sequential, the parallel, and the fused models have been rather widely used. The interactive model, developed during…

Proceedings of the 1980 conference of the Southern Association for Institutional Research (SAIR) are presented. The conference focused on problems and perspectives for institutional research in the 1980s. Contents include: reports of preconference workshops and sessions, reports of conference sessions, abstracts of contributed papers, and…