Expresses doubts about whether the evidence presented by M. Wang, G. Haertel, and H. Walberg provides robust and consistent findings that could, or should, be used to inform educational policy and practice. Discusses five questions about the methodology of the study, and indicates that basing educational policy on their findings would be merely an…

Explores the role and purpose of research synthesis, and defends the conclusions drawn about school learning. The selection of the broad outcome "school learning" was an attempt to show that educational research and development can answer important questions about schooling. (SLD)

This article summarizes and analyzes 43 pieces of professional literature pertaining to paraprofessional supports for students with disabilities published between 1991 and 2000. The findings identify topical gaps in the literature, review the major data based findings, and present implications for the field. Suggestions for future research stress…

This article introduces this special issue on functional assessment methods and their application to children and youth with autism. It traces the 30-year history of functional assessment and briefly summarizes each of the following articles, noting the common emphasis on social validity and using the science and technology of functional…

Explores how academic institutions and individual professors profiting from patenting faculty research may be endangering the future of science. (EV)

The last decade has seen enormous expansion in the use of psychotropic medications to treat behavioral and emotional disorders in children and adolescents. Because much prescription of these agents is off-label, serious attempts are being made to encourage pharmacological research in children. Without examining the data upon which government…

This chapter addresses the opportunities and challenges of using alumni research in Spain.

Aiming to encourage longitudinal studies in science education, we clarify conceptual and methodological aspects of longitudinal research. We use the studies that other articles in this issue describe to illustrate these aspects. The illustrations range from attempts to promote long-term change through experimental teaching to investigations that…

In this article we chronicle a particular professional development initiative designed to promote the acquisition of an evaluation habit of mind within an educational context. After describing the rationale behind this initiative in some detail, we proceed to map the experiences of four of the participants--a principal, a vice principal, a…

Interest in strengthening the impact and value of education research has been growing around the world. Here I outline a view of the nature of "impact" and point to instances where research has had a positive impact in education, but always within a larger social and political framework. A three element "model" of research impact is developed and…

Policymakers and educators see professional development as a way to improve the quality of instruction in classrooms across the nation, but the empirical literature linking professional development to improved student achievement is extremely thin. Logically, though, it would seem that the right kinds of professional development would improve…

Proxies typically serve as information providers in studies of persons with intellectual disabilities. However, little is known about the concordance between different proxy categories and how proxy characteristics influence the information provided. We compared 89 pairs of relative and staff reports on the living conditions of persons with…

For many years, university based educational research has been blamed for being dominated by positivistic research tradition at the near exclusion of field based ethnographic work. Several findings have also portrayed this domination among the major explanations for practitioners' lack of interest in educational research literature. With the…

The number of university-industry R&D partnerships (UIPs) has increased significantly over the past decade, in most OECD countries and in Australia, yet the study of risk in such commercially focused collaborative ventures is still a developing area. This review paper seeks to contribute to debate on this increasingly important phenomenon by…

The simultaneous presence of a revolutionary change in information technologies and a growing demand for fundamental changes in the education system have set in motion a reassessment of the relationship among information, research, and decision making. The International Bureau of Education (IBE) considered it necessary to introduce new elements…