In this article, the authors address some of the scientific challenges associated with using observation as a research method. The authors ask how researchers contextualise and understand observation in terms of its theoretical underpinnings and how it is conducted. Using a vignette in the kindergarten context, the authors explore how observation…

Background: Active Support is a staff practice that aims to increase engagement of people with intellectual disabilities. This study seeks to: (1) identify the outcomes of staff using Active Support and how these are measured; (2) identify how the views of people with intellectual disabilities have been included in Active Support research. Method:…

The growing interest in video research and new technologies for recording human interaction has stirred debates about intrusiveness and 'reactivity' understood as researcher-derived changes in subjects. In addition to a plethora of concepts referring to such effects in extant literature, different ontological and epistemological positions provide…

Much contemporary ethnography hopes to engage with a community to justify social critique. Whether from problem selection, interpersonal rewards, or a desire for exchange, researchers often take the "side" of informants. Such an approach, linked to "public ethnography," marginalizes a once-traditional approach to fieldwork,…

In the complex world of educational policy, causal inferences will be debated. As we review non-experimental designs in educational policy, we focus on how to clarify and focus the terms of debate. We begin by presenting the potential outcomes/counterfactual framework and then describe approximations to the counterfactual generated from the…

This article examines the practices of ethnographers carrying out research in and, especially, on organizations. Ethnographers studying organizations, like other ethnographers, emphasize close observation and understanding the meaning of actions, words, and artifacts; they differ from other fieldworkers, though, in focusing on the organization…

A growing number of research groups are now including older minimally verbal individuals with autism spectrum disorder in their studies to encompass the full range of heterogeneity in the population. There are numerous barriers that prevent researchers from collecting high-quality data from these individuals, in part because of the challenging…

The work presented in this case study results from a study conducted in 2012-2014 examining a newly created teacher evaluation system to determine the inter-rater reliability of the classroom observation instrument. The teacher evaluation system was the result of a partnership between the school district and the university in the same city…

Mobile technologies, specifically smartphones, offer social scientists a potentially powerful approach to examine the social world. They enable researchers to collect information that was previously unobservable or difficult to measure, expanding the realm of empirical investigation. For research that concerns resource-poor and hard-to-reach…

Three teachers and one assistant principal were recruited from a middle school in a large metropolitan area of the southwestern United States to implement evidence-based practices (EBP). The teachers implemented EBPs in self-continued classrooms to ameliorate the disruptive behavior of three students. The recruited teachers and assistant principal…

Although inquiry-based learning is connected with a number of advantages, especially in the field of human geography, very little research has been carried out in lessons by the learners themselves to date. The aim of the study at hand is, therefore, to facilitate the process of solving problems from the sphere of human geography through the use…

In this paper, we consider the implications of a commitment to acknowledging the role of context within a research practice partnership. We outline the approach to doing so within a design-based research intervention with 42 schools across three Pacific Island countries to improve literacy learning and language development. In doing so, the paper…

The author raises questions about ethnographic methodology through exploring the implications of using observations produced by his colleagues about his office as data for his research. This process blurred the boundaries between researcher, method and the object and subject of research. It meets some criteria for ethnography and not others, and…

There is unexamined potential for developing and testing rival causal explanations in the type of data that participant observation is best suited to create: descriptions of in situ social interaction crafted from the participants' perspectives. By intensively examining a single ethnography, we can see how multiple predictions can be derived from…

When doing research, or for that matter working in school-age childcare, the researcher/teacher is required to develop a plan for her/his work in spite of knowing that unexpected things will happen. This article aims to explore the relationship between the process of planning and unexpected events in childcare practice and action research. The…