The authors examine the various communities of practice that were formed throughout a teacher development project that included a formal mentoring component. The authors describe a theoretical approach to understanding learning in communities of practice and present an approach for analyzing professional learning resulting from social interactions…

This paper reports a study that aimed to investigate the perspectives of educational psychologists (EPs) and speech and language therapists (SLTs) about collaborative practices across these two services, to identify any barriers to collaboration and to explore how these could be overcome. The views of EPs and SLTs in two local authorities were…

Three methods of synthesizing correlations for meta-analytic structural equation modeling (SEM) under different degrees and mechanisms of missingness were compared for the estimation of correlation and SEM parameters and goodness-of-fit indices by using Monte Carlo simulation techniques. A revised generalized least squares (GLS) method for…

In this article we describe the initial investigations that we have conducted on student data collected from a web-based tutoring tool. We have used some data mining techniques such as association rule and symbolic data analysis, as well as traditional SQL queries to gain further insight on the students' learning and deduce information to improve…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students identified as having brain injury were receiving Section 504 or special education services and, if so, under which disability category were special education services being provided. The participants were parents of students who were enrolled in grades 1-12 during the 2001-2002 school…

This article examines the relevancy of large-scale, quantitative methodologies in middle grades education research. Based on recommendations from national advocacy organizations, the need for more large-scale, quantitative research, combined with the application of more rigorous methodologies, is presented. Subsequent sections describe and discuss…

In health research, we depend heavily on the goodwill of study participants. However, the whole social contract of health research is based on the premise that everyone comes to the research table with honorable intentions. What course should we take if we doubt the authenticity of our participants' accounts? Through the use of an illustrative…

One of the issues facing educational research workers today is the determination of the similarities and differences between countries and cultures in the factors that influence educational outcomes. The author of this article proposes a new approach to this problem. Usually when countries are compared, the complete student samples are taken into…

Higher education (HE) is becoming a big business, with huge investments in IT technology supporting online learning. With the awareness of the knowledge economy has come a growing consciousness that HE constitutes a large industry or economic sector in its own right. In a marketing fashion, we understand that some customers present much greater…

It is argued that studies of early adolescent peer victimization and bullying should be longitudinal because of the dynamism of this developmental period. Traditional methods for analyzing longitudinal data are inadequate because of the strict data requirements and inflexibility of models. A better alternative is linear mixed models (LMMs) for…

Objective: Simulation technologies are used to assess and teach competencies through the provision of reproducible stimuli. They have exceptional utility in assessing responses to clinical stimuli that occur sporadically or infrequently. In this article, the authors describe the utility of emerging simulation technologies, and discuss critical…

Objective: This article describes a data entry and analysis system called Mission-Based Reporting (MBR) that is used to measure faculty and department activities related to specific academic missions and objectives. The purpose of MBR is to provide a reporting tool useful in evaluating faculty effort and in helping chairs 1) to better assess their…

Approximately 50% of families of children with ADHD fail to pursue, or adhere to, recommended treatments. The present study examines parent ratings of the acceptability of pharmacological and behavioral treatments for ADHD and the relationships between these ratings and subsequent pursuit of treatment. Fifty-five families whose children received…

This paper evaluates the actual use of a course Website by graduate social work students. The study utilized data mining techniques to discover meaningful trends by using the data from server logs. The course Website was accessed 24,730 times by all 49 graduate students during a semester. The students utilized the course Website 23 hours a day, 7…

Passive students staring blankly at computer screens has been a worrisome image for many educators. Often they fear that technology can remove students from contact with the real world. Two technologies that have been in general use for many years, but are more recently appearing in the educational sector, provide the opportunity to reap the…