Reports use of social networking to recruit 64 Mexican-American children for an assessment of diet and exercise habits. Describes friendship, social, consanguineal, and coparenthood networks. Compares results of direct contact versus network contact. Discusses implications for recruiting ethnic groups for research. (LFL)

Point of entry problems are faced by evaluators when asked to start an evaluation at an inappropriate time or to perform an inappropriate study. The fundamental purpose of evaluation is to help improve services. Guidelines are presented for choosing when to do a context, input, process, or product evaluation. (GDC)

School context constrains and supports field researchers' data collection activities, just as it can influence the educational change processes being studied. For outsiders, the accessibility of a school is affected by a number of factors. These influence findings and have implications for achieving data comparability across several sites.…

Discusses problems of researchers conducting studies in situations where they are also employed. Focuses on role-switching as a practical research tactic and describes related experiences of the author (a researcher and college and administrator) with Black students at the University of Pennsylvania. (KH)

Discussion of Logo use to teach children computer programing covers the educational theory behind Logo, how it differs from other programing languages, its educational promise, its graphics capabilities, Logo research, and different versions available. It is argued that educational computing will succeed only if it provides new ways of teaching.…

A solution to the problem of specification error due to excluded variables in statistical models of treatment effects in nonrandomized (nonequivalent) control group designs is presented. It involves longitudinal observation with at least two pretests. A maximum likelihood estimation program such as LISREL may provide reasonable estimates of…

This paper examines the reasons for the current emphasis on state and federal policy analysis, presents frameworks for viewing local policy analysis, and examines local policy areas that would be conducive to further analysis, focusing on discrepancies between school effectiveness frameworks and the framework of schools as loosely coupled…

The authors recap the main issues in their critique of Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore (CHK) as well as CHK's rejoinder. These issues include reliability and validity of test scores, the use of particular statistical models and inferences from these, and the importance of school policies in assuring higher achievement among students. (IS)

These three issues of the "Research Exchange" focus on how better to conduct disability research and disseminate research results. The first issue examines the topic of human subject/human research participant protection, with a focus on research funded through the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). It…

Although action research in education offers researchers and practitioners a clear and philosophically appealing way of making improvements, fostering learning, and developing the individual and the organization, adherents sometimes find themselves defending this type of research because it has been practiced without appropriate rigor. This book…

This paper describes selected settings, circumstances, problems, and barriers to research in Indian country, and suggests ways to mitigate or overcome such problems and barriers. Examples are drawn from four research projects. Distinctions are drawn among sponsors of research in Indian country (usually federal agencies); consumers of such research…

This paper synthesizes explorations from two research projects with 3- and 4-year-olds in the areas of instrumental music-making and telephone discourse, sharing an approach to research with young children in which the adult participates in the child's activity and seeks to share the initiative. The interpretive, participatory approaches used are…

Presenting a case study of the African nation of Burundi to illustrate the great variation in the environment in which children are raised in developing and developed nations, this paper focuses on the importance of considering the context of a particular culture and society when educators talk about the quality of early childhood services.…

Noting that a substantial research literature on fathers has been built over the last 20 years and that fathers can no longer be considered "the forgotten parent" of the scientific community, this paper summarizes key research on fathers while highlighting concerns regarding the current emphasis on fatherhood expressed by parents and…

Educational research, unfortunately, often focuses on finding statistical differences between overall means or averages. Media reports of research routinely present those differences and little else. This paper discusses the importance of considering the spread of the data in addition to the center and how this is relevant to research focused on…