Challenges the increasingly comfortable relationship between cultural studies and communication, in which cultural studies has compromised itself by remaking itself within the image of communication studies. Advocates a cultural studies built on the concept of articulation. (SR)

Pitfalls of sloppy science are discussed as they relate to the evaluation of human services programs. Differences between trial-and-error methods and the scientific method are discussed; and the requirements for sound research are reviewed, as are the shortcomings of a less rigorous approach. (SLD)

A past president of the Comparative and International Education Society discusses increases in comparative education research and international cooperative educational projects; the unreliability of educational statistics worldwide; "paradigm wars" and other sources of intellectual gridlock in the university-based research community; and…

Presents an attempt to cross-validate a widely used set of standard credibility scales. Finds that the Meyer modification of the Gaziano-McGrath scales appears to validly and reliably measure credibility per se but that a second set of scales posited to measure community affiliation is not sufficiently reliable in its current form for use without…

In 1992, the Current Population Survey changed the question regarding educational attainment to ask for highest level completed and offers more possible responses. The old format tended to misclassify years of schooling, made it impossible to identify specific degrees, and led to uncertainty in high school graduate classification. (JOW)

A California teacher in a successful Structured English Program criticizes Keith Baker's November 1998 article's inaccuracies. Baker fails to recognize that gains of immersion and early-exit students in David Ramirez's study are not sustained over time. Also, he erroneously compares study results of defined and ill-defined programs. (MLH)

Research relationships are not private but are part of the public realm. Research relationships are reconceptualized as research space in which the two participants interact like two borders intersecting. Via a review of classic research literature these classic relationships are explored. (MMU)

Highlights two problems with examined study: (1) investigation is based on a misunderstanding of Goswami and Bryant's claims about the role of rhyme and analogy in beginning reading; and (2) methodological weaknesses, in particular unintended intra-list priming effects, limit the conclusions that can be drawn from the booklet analogy task. (Author)

Examines characteristics of educational knowledge produced by educational researchers and considers how this impacts on educational research. Reviews the negative and positive consequences of this structurally egalitarian and substantively divergent knowledge production in education schools. (MMU)

In a previous issue, Lawrence Schweinhart and David Weikart conclude that children who attended a direct-instruction preschool program had significantly greater adult felony arrests than children following the High/Scope or nursery-school curricula. Analysis of research methods suggests improbable links between preschool experience and adult…

Studied national educational datasets in Japan during the post-World War II era. Found that current datasets do not contain questions about family background or rank of school attended that are detailed enough to permit an analysis of the impact of family background on educational attainment. (SLD)

Analyzes and documents classification issues as part of the assessment of data quality in the Common Core of Data (CCD). Focuses on the Public Elementary/Secondary Education Agency Universe Survey. Indicates shortcomings in the definitions used for the CCD. (SLD)

Argues that interpretive ethnography offers a useful avenue for exploring how members of a professional community go about producing and applying specialized written knowledge. Raises the caveat that researchers using the methodology to study professional knowledge-making need to maintain a balance of engagement with and detachment from the…

Schools should adopt reform programs on the basis of research, not ideology, checking for control groups, the number of participating schools, actual results, and independent resources. Two federal programs, the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program and the 1998 Reading Excellence Act, stress adoption of research-based reforms. (MLH)

Compares two meta-analyses of instructional interventions for students with learning disabilities conducted by Gersten and Baker, and Swanson, focusing on issues of grouping and reporting such studies and of treating differing outcome measures. Considers the identification of important instructional components in both meta-analyses. (JPB)