Responds to issues raised by Archer and Bjorkvist, focusing on four issues: definitions; normality, deviance, and context; developmental origins and outcomes; and getting along. (JPB)

Argues that Tomasello's (2000) interpretation of young children's conservatism in language production depends on questionable premises. Reviews evidence against the assumptions, showing that children learn item-specific facts about verbs and other lexical items. Asserts that researchers must explore the interactions of lexical and more abstract…

Asserts that having parents participate in first-level screenings of their young children is an ideal way to strengthen the parent-program/school relationship. Notes concerns with identifying which parents can accurately rate their child's social-emotional behavior. Maintains that having good tools to use as a follow-up to screening is as…

Provides a critique of research done by A. M. Dockery, R. Kelly, K. Norris, and T. Strombeck regarding the cost and value of hiring trainees. Discusses the perceived shortcomings in the method and looks at the implications of the research. Dockery et al. provide a rejoinder. (JOW)

Productivity growth (and its connections with schools) may be mysterious, but experts continue to document an expanding U.S. economy. A University of Wisconsin study described in the Fall 1999 "ERS Spectrum" found a mismatch between teachers' actual and recommended grading practices. Maybe the literature is unreasonable. (MLH)

This introductory article discusses the benefits of participatory action research (PAR), including the empowerment of participants in research and the research process, the difficulties PAR presents, and summarizes following articles in a special series on the facets of PAR. (CR)

This response to several commentaries on a successful behavior support plan that was used to address the challenging behaviors of a 9-year-old boy with severe disabilities focuses on the importance of multiple perspectives and multiple research methodologies, the benefit and challenge of parent partnerships, and issues related to practice and…

Content analysis of 364 articles in the Journal of Agricultural Education 1990-1999 indicated that a majority of studies did not mention nonresponse error as a threat to external validity, did not attempt to control for nonresponse error, or did not cite literature on handling it. Protocols to address nonresponse error were proposed. (Contains 24…

Describes the richness of Hollich et al.'s model of language acquisition. Presents concerns about focus on object words in word learning research, the phantom child in the model, and the missing affect in theories and research on word learning. Suggests that experimental work inspired by principles and constraints theory and observational work…

Suggests that the findings of Legerstee, Barna, and DiAdamo (2000) are most parsimoniously explained by associative learning and may not constitute a precursor to later understanding of intentionality. Argues for the importance of differentiating between associative and inferential processes and reviews evidence that the understanding of…

Discusses how student self reported gains or growth during college have become prominent dependent variables in much of the college impact research. Argues that, as typically used in existing studies, self reported gains or growth do not permit the same level of internal validity as does assessing gains with a pretest-posttest design. Suggests a…

Teaching in general and teaching of mathematics in particular are matters of great importance for contemporary society. Over the years, societies have established institutions in order to incorporate mathematics and science into the culture of society with the clear intention of encouraging a scientific vision of the world among the population.…

This article is about the possibilities of conducting research with children productively. Children may need suitable prompts, occasions, or media for their expression. The discussion begins with an overview of the challenges or dynamics researchers can experience with any participants in qualitative research in the constructivist paradigm. It…

This paper explores eight hypotheses regarding trends in CALL literature relative to research subjects: small number of subjects, overuse of questionnaires, limited time, lack of experience with the application, task type and CALL in general, and lack of training before and during the study. Based on a review of 78 articles from four CALL-oriented…

In this article, the author comments on an article by Dunn, Kadane, and Garrow, "Comparing Harm Done by Mobility and Class Absence: Missing Students and Missing Data." He believes the research reported in that article should serve as a model for future applications of Bayesian methods in important educational research problems. The author lauds…