A recent article in this journal discusses ways to manage uncertainty when the research field abruptly and significantly changes on researchers working inside their own society (Kacen & Chaitin, 2006). Our essay extends this discussion by asking: How do researchers manage ambiguous, conflictual, and rapidly changing events when they engage in…

This article documents a first project undertaken by kindergarten children and their teacher in a public school in the southeastern United States. Images, work samples, records of children's comments, and the teacher's description tell the story of the project as it unfolds. The authors provide interpretation of the project events documented in…

In this paper, we present a laboratory activity in computed tomography (CT) primarily composed of a photogate and a rotary motion sensor that can be assembled quickly and partially automates data collection and analysis. We use an enclosure made with a light filter that is largely opaque in the visible spectrum but mostly transparent to the near…

Background: The Special Olympics offer the opportunity for athletes with intellectual disabilities to participate in a range of sports at regional, national and international level. A parallel Healthy Athletes programme was introduced to ensure safety at the games but also to collect data on the health needs of those with intellectual disabilities…

The Project Postgraduate Educational Research (PPER) data indicate that case study is the most popular methodology among South African education masters and doctorate students in the period 1995-2004. This article reflects on the reasons for the preference for case study by considering epistemological and contextual factors. It unpacks the links…

A large-scale, multi-year, randomized study compared learning activities and outcomes for hands-on, remotely-operated, and simulation-based educational laboratories in an undergraduate engineering course. Students (N = 458) worked in small-group lab teams to perform two experiments involving stress on a cantilever beam. Each team conducted the…

This article describes the first phase of a two-phase, mixed-method study. The study, now in progress, explores how and to what extent willingness to engage in learning in mature adulthood is influenced by prior experiences and specific individual personality variables, such as perceived locus of control and degree of self-efficacy. Study…

The authors' goal was to examine the structural relationships among vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, syntactic awareness, and reading comprehension in English-speaking adults. Structural equation analysis of data collected from 151 participants revealed that morphological awareness affected reading comprehension directly. Syntactic…

This paper deals with data gathering and interpretation in folk linguistics, but, as the parenthetical title suggests, it is not limited to any prejudged notion of what approaches or techniques might be most relevant to the wide variety of concerns encompassed by applied linguistics. In this article, the author conceives of folk linguistics…

Drawing from an interactionist approach and feedback research, we examine the role of developmental feedback and proactive personality on newcomer task performance and helping behavior. Data were collected from 2 high-tech joint-ventures within the information technology and manufacturing industries located in Shanghai, China. Results based on 151…

This article ethnographically examines the ways in which No Child Left Behind (NCLB) links local practices to the centralized processing of data through its narrowing of procedures and measurements aimed at accountability. Framed by actor-network theory, it draws upon data consistently collected between June 2005 and October 2008, and then…

Objectives: What impact does the strengthening of child rights have on the experience and circumstances of children? CRC General Comment 13 emphasizes that defining measurable targets for improvements in child protection is a key element of efforts to strengthen child rights and well-being across the world. This paper describes an attempt to…

This study uses the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus as data and Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and Finegan's (1999) and Gardner and Davies' (2007) informative studies as a starting point and reference. The study offers a cross-English variety and cross-register examination of the use of English phrasal…

Using a cost-benefit framework for financial planning services and proprietary data collected in the summer of 2008, the client characteristics that are associated with the likelihood of paying for professional financial advice, as well as the type of financial services purchased, are identified. Results indicate that respondents who pay for…

It is exciting to see children display an interest in discovering the world through their actions. Those actions are the beginning of science inquiry, the process children use to develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas, including an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. This month's column features an activity…