Over the last twenty years, education researchers have increasingly conducted randomised experiments with the goal of informing the decisions of educators and policymakers. Such experiments have generally employed broad, consequential, standardised outcome measures in the hope that this would allow decisionmakers to compare effectiveness of…

The benefits of undergraduate research are well documented, and many colleges and universities include a senior research requirement for graduation. In addition, most science curricula attempt to include discoverystyle, laboratory components to prepare students for their research experiences and to expose them to research methods in different…

One associate editor's perspective on classroom experiment articles is detailed in this article. The associate editor provides recommendations for manuscripts for the Instruction (those that describe new classroom experiments) and Research (those reporting studies into the efficacy of classroom experiments as a pedagogical tool) Sections of…

Indicates the range of purposes and variety of settings in which design experiments have been conducted, delineating five crosscutting features that collectively differentiate design experiments from other methodologies. Clarifies what is involved in preparing for and carrying out a design experiment and in conducting a retrospective analysis of…

Explores how the emerging goals, approaches, and methodologies of design experiments might be productively combined with methods of inquiry common in more traditional laboratory science, considering the potential benefits of such a dialectic. Presents three examples of collaboration and describes steps toward productive exchange (identifying…

Documenting treatment integrity is an important issue in research and practice in any discipline concerned with prevention and intervention. However, consensus concerning the dimensions of treatment integrity and how they should be measured has yet to emerge. Advances from three areas in which significant treatment integrity work has taken…

One of the signatures of scientific writing is its ability to present the claims of science as if they were "untouched by human hands." In the early years of experimental education, researchers achieved this by adopting a citational practice that led to the sedimentation of their cardinal method, the analysis of variance, and their standard for…

Instructional research now in advanced formulation at Southwest Regional Laboratory for Educational Research and Development is used to illustrate what a system of the IDCMS type must be able to do to acceptably support execution of such research. Of particular interest here is the event-control system which allows different subjects who…

One in a series of studies of lifelong learning, this paper discusses the cultural and educational needs of selected urban and rural communities in Senegal and Ghana, emphasizing grassroots initiative and the community's analysis of its own needs. Information is drawn in part from surveys, public meetings, and interviews in three communities:…