This article presents an overview of philosophy of science and research paradigms. The philosophy of science parameters of ontology, epistemology, axiology, rhetorical structure, and methodology are discussed across the research paradigms of positivism, postpositivism, constructivism-interpretivism, and the critical-ideological perspective.…

The Center for Technology and School Change (CTSC) is a research and development center specializing in professional development, evaluation and technology integration research. The goal of the qualitative research reported in this article was to identify factors that strengthen the integration of technology in classrooms in ways that are…

Using a qualitative case study design, this article explores the different meanings of quality that stakeholders brought to the process of planning online degree programs for a university system distance learning initiative and examines the impact of those different meanings on the resulting planning process and the resulting online degree…

In this article, we elaborate methodologies to study construction of knowledge in argumentative activities. For this purpose, we report on a quasi-empirical study on construction of knowledge through successive argumentative activities on a controversial issue. A group of 120 fifth grade students participated in successive argumentative…

An exploratory study was conducted which assessed behaviors that characterize social competence in the second and fifth grades. A contextual approach was used to gather information from second- and fifth-grade children and their parents and teachers regarding the behaviors they perceived to be important for getting along well with peers. Data were…

Adolescent boys perceive their male peer group culture--and their socialization toward masculine norms emphasized within this culture--as negatively influencing their abilities to develop close male friendships. Boys who manage to develop close, male friendships, however, draw strength from these relationships to resist the social pressures of…

This author investigates the question. Within the cultural context of her teaching, how does one teacher experience professional learning aimed at literacy practices? Using an elementary teacher's professional context as a site, the author employed data collection tools typical of qualitative analysis: participant observation, interviews, and…

The eugenics era (c. 1900?1930) produced a strong desire among mental retardation professionals to recognize and control "the feeble-minded." Some eugenicists believed it was possible to classify individuals visually by learning to recognize what they believed to be observable characteristics of idiocy and imbecility. In this paper I used…

Individuals with mental retardation and their parents/guardians have long been neglected in health care research. In this study we used a qualitative methodology to describe the experiences adults with mental retardation and their parents/guardians have with the delivery of primary care services. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted…

The literature on vicarious traumatization has suggested that trauma-sensitive supervision may help to minimize the effect of vicarious exposure to trauma; however, nothing from the perspective of trauma counselors was noted. The present qualitative study involved 1 male and 8 female sexual violence counselors who had worked with sexual violence…

The authors address concern in the field today about the literacy needs of boys. In a 1977 precursor to this article, it was literacy issues related to girls that appeared to command attention. As in that article and another preceding one, information is presented here as a true-false test. After taking the test, readers are provided with answers…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to consider "friendsickness" as experienced by 96 entering college students. As defined here, "friendsickness" is a challenge new students experience when they leave their established network of friends and begin college. Journal entries written by new students in first-year seminars were examined and…

This qualitative study describes a new professional stance, teacher as pedagogical researcher, provides a rationale for its emergence, demonstrates connections of pedagogical research to autonomy in teaching through the words and lived experiences of teacher researchers, and presents implications for teacher professional development and for…

This study investigates student conceptualizations of the nature of science (NOS) and how students interpret and evaluate conflicting evidence regarding a socioscientific issue. Eighty-four high school students participated in the study by reading contradictory reports about the status of global warming and responding to questions designed to…

To address several key questions in social science research, repeated interviews of individuals drawn from difficult populations are required. This article describes an approach for addressing the challenges associated with longitudinal interview studies, including locating research participants, obtaining reliable and valid interview data over…