Whether the goal is to identify and describe trends and variation in populations, create new measures of key phenomena, or describe samples in studies aimed at identifying causal effects, description plays a critical role in the scientific process in general and education research in particular. Descriptive analysis identifies patterns in data to…

Background/Context: Large-scale randomized controlled experiments conducted in authentic learning environments are commonly high stakes, carrying extensive costs and requiring lengthy commitments for all-or-nothing results amidst many potential obstacles. Educational technologies harbor an untapped potential to provide researchers with access to…

The landscape of teacher leadership in school improvement is a changing landscape that is getting more complex over time. As teachers are expected to take on more roles school improvement efforts, there is a particular need to know if and how they are prepared to meet the increasing demands of their jobs. This paper discusses the role of teacher…

This report summarizes the findings of a systematic review of practice-based literature on teaching about interdependent relationships in ecosystems to upper elementary students. The report is a product of the Knowledge Assets to Support the Science Instruction of Elementary Teachers (ASSET) project. ASSET is exploring a method for collecting and…

Many of the researchers in research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are drawn to them because of frustrations that their work--while esteemed by academic colleagues--too infrequently influences education policies or practices. Many district partners in RPPs also have backgrounds as researchers, and they too want to see research address stubborn…

In this case, I discuss my progression from ethnography toward multimodal ethnography as a necessary methodology to study multiliterate and multimodal lives. I view daily life, social interactions, and meaning-making practices as inherently multimodal. By multimodal, I mean that individuals continually read, interpret, and create meanings that…

The purpose of the study was to research good practices at three school levels--preschool, compulsory school, and secondary school--that contribute to the social and academic success of immigrant children and students. The project integrates four subthemes and main research areas, including children/students, teachers, leaders, and policy. We used…

Based on a recent inaugural lecture, this article presents a critical appreciation and analysis of the application of different research methodologies to selected social and educational research contexts. The analysis is set against the backdrop of an ontological question concerning the possibility of truth. Specifically, it seeks to explore the…

This study used situational grounded theory to explore the potential impact of systemic design on 21st century education. Situational analysis grounded theory (Clarke, 2005) was selected over three other established grounded theory methods because it provided a suitable foundation to chart the complexities of systemic design and contemporary…

Although the association between school suspension and deleterious outcomes is widely acknowledged, policy and practice need to be informed by an evidence base derived from multiple studies revealing consistent trends. This meta-analysis aims to address this void by examining the degree to which different types of school suspensions (in-school…

Sociomaterial theories, including actor-network theory (ANT), materialist feminism and posthumanism, are sometimes argued to not be addressing or unable to address sufficiently the political and are therefore dismissed as irrelevant to educational research. Through an extended discussion of writers across the social sciences, this article seeks to…

Researchers and policy makers agree that the relation between school and work is an important characteristic of vocational education and training (VET) and needs attention. The relation itself poses several challenges for research to be successful and useful for policy makers. In this article, we outline these challenges and answer the following…

The article features a discussion about rural contexts in literacy research. Rural students compose a significant portion of K-12 students, and rural schools have unique challenges, such as limited funding and resources. However, as a field of literacy researchers, we do not privilege place equitably across multiple contexts. The article serves as…

The research­-policy-practice nexus is a long­-standing issue in higher education research (HER). Although closer linkages and greater relevance have been repeatedly suggested to improve the impact of HER on policy and practice, sophisticated theorization with contextual sensitivity is underdeveloped to renew the discussion in the non­-western…

American education's journey has witnessed the rise and fall of various progressive education approaches, including service-learning. In many respects, however, service-learning is still undergoing formation and adoption as a teaching method, specifically in School-Based, Agricultural Education (SBAE). For this reason, the interest existed to…