In educational studies, the paradigm war over quantitative and qualitative research approaches has raged for more than half a century. The focus in the late twentieth century was on the distinction between the two approaches, and the motivation was to retain one of the approaches' supremacy. Since the early twenty-first century, there has been a…

Qualitative inquiry is an effective way to explore the perceptions of participants and unlock their experiences. In social science research (e.g., applied linguistics, sociology, sociolinguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics), there is a strong tendency among qualitative researchers to collect their required data through interviewing. Interviews…

The following article comprises an autoethnographic discussion of researcher identity in school-based educational research. The research centred on a professional learning programme in which arts/education practitioners delivered workshops for teachers that used creative, arts practice with a focus on mindful techniques to support teachers'…

As essential as positionality is to qualitative research involving engagement with research participants, contemporary scholarly discussion of positionality is mainly aimed at educating emerging researchers about acknowledging their own subjectivities. In turn, there is little consensus regarding how authors should address positionality in writing…

Purpose: The critical incident technique (CIT) is widely used in many disciplines; however, scholars have acknowledged challenges associated with analyzing qualitative data when using this technique. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to address the data analysis issues that have been raised by introducing some different contemporary ways…

Qualitative researchers often turn to focus groups as an efficient and effective way to gather data in a collective context. A common critique is that they play into power dynamics present at the site, privileging dominant, high status, and more vocal participants. Traditional focus group structures also rely on participants to trust the…

High-quality systematic literature reviews provide a systematic process for identifying, synthesizing, and critiquing multiple studies and, in turn, inform theory, research, practice, and policy. With a focus on special education systematic reviews, we propose four core principles (i.e., coherence, contextualization, generativity, and…

Research practices in Arab universities, especially the use of qualitative methods, tend to fall behind international standards of excellence; hence, the relatively small number of qualitative journal articles published by Arab academics. Conducting research in Palestine is particularly problematic due to the continued Israeli occupation and its…

There have been several calls for more transparency in realist methods, particularly in the complex process of programme theory development and refinement. This paper will describe the way in which Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software, specifically, NUD*IST Vivo (NVivo), was used to build and refine programme theories (using…

Secondary research in the form of literature reviews facilitates consolidation and transfer of knowledge. In the field of TESOL, the majority of secondary research is conducted in the form of narrative reviews, which rely on the researchers' selection and interpretation of primary studies and findings. Systematic reviews, which can be broadly…

Qualitative research methods are used within special education research to provide insights about how and why phenomena occur. They can, however, be misunderstood and applied inappropriately. Our aim in this article is to provide an overview of qualitative methods, including their purpose, contributions to research involving students with learning…

The case study is a widely used methodology among qualitative researchers irrespective of their philosophical orientation. While positivist and interpretive philosophies are the two most popular research philosophies across diverse research fields, critical realism offers a third alternative. Critical realism is a research philosophy that assumes…

This article presents a thorough review of the literature dedicated to learning more about mixed methods research design. Explanatory sequential mixed methods studies and exploratory sequential mixed methods studies are the two types of mixed methods research design models that this article presents in detail. To contextualize different ideas…

This article presents a pedagogical strategy that uses Chex Mix™ as a visual and physical means of helping students learn data analysis. The manipulative is used to guide students to a deeper level of analysis by looking "within" and "between" data sources. Specific steps are shared about using Chex Mix™ snacks to teach the…

Situated within a series of river journeys, this inquiry considers the role of material landscape in shaping learning possibilities and explores practices of reading landscapes diffractively. We consider ways we might pay attention to the ever-changing flux of places while experimenting with posthuman pedagogical praxis. Methodologically, we…