Reviews some major characteristics of ethnography as they apply to policy issues and policy formulation, and ethnography's utility from the perspective of how public educational policy is made. Discusses the potential contributions of ethnography and the responsibilities ethnographers must consider if their work is to have an impact on public…

Argues that what we need to do in the future is: (1) to continue to validate broader methodological approaches to evaluation; (2) to defend alternative scientific approaches and at the same time to indicate how they differ from essentially nonscientific views of the world; (3) to recognize the difference between methodological familiarity and…

Despite the profession's code of ethics that opposes discrimination because of sex, the knowledge base on which social work is built is permeated by bias. In this review of the literature, the author identifies trends that illustrate this dilemma. (Author)

Discusses sensory-perceptual abnormalities in people with autism from published firsthand accounts and existing psychological research evidence. A range of abnormalities, including hyper- and hyposensitivity, sensory distortion and overload, and multichannel receptivity and processing difficulties, are described and the limitations of clinical and…

Argues that women are unaccounted for in most phenomenographic studies, for several reasons: most research has been conducted in fields and using samples in which women are underrepresented; the traditional disciplines of study are patriarchal; and the "outcome space" is defined in cognitive terms, neglecting the affective dimension…

Presents a roundtable discussion by researchers in business communication of research methodology issues. Discusses what is gained and lost when classifying data; how to proceed if journal reviewers ask contributors to rethink their methodology; whether methodology itself can be challenged; and how readership of a journal can impact methodological…

Eric Hanushek's conclusion that money does not matter in public education is debatable. His latest meta-analysis reviews many articles from economics journals, while omitting several published in education journals. He finds no relationship between test results and spending, yet labels schools inefficient. In other research, the Annie Casey…

Assesses techniques used by researchers to collect and analyze data on how people with visual impairments or blindness learn, understand, and think about geographic space. Recommendations are made for increasing the validity of studies, including the use of multiple, mutually supportive tests; larger samples; and real-world environments.…

Discusses the use of focus groups for conducting research with children, and presents a case study that used the focus group method in a child sexual abuse prevention program. Critiques the advantages and disadvantages of the use of focus groups with children for evaluative purposes. (Author/CR)

An analysis of 20 years of citations on research into scholarly communication to determine the degree of interdisciplinarity between sociology of science and information science concluded that sociologists and information scientists stay mostly in their own disciplines and that only network studies are shared by researchers in both fields.…

This article reassesses large-scale uncitedness, the proportion of articles that do not receive a single citation within five years of publication. Examines the problem of disaggregation in the measurement of uncitedness; reviews reactions of the popular press and scholars; provides a case study of uncitedness in "College & Research…

This response to a study by D. Strauss and T. Kastner, which compared mortality rates for individuals with mental retardation in either community or institutional settings, notes that all previous research on this subject had found institutional mortality rates higher than those in the community. Methodological concerns are raised about the study.…

Educators are often caught up in the problem of political agendas or funding driving educational research. Projects and proposals congruent with current trends or some agency's priority are often those that are funded. Institutional recognition in the form of promotion and salary increments is frequently focused on funded research. What, then, is…

Benefits and potential problems with formal college and university programs of Interinstitutional data sharing are examined from an institutional perspective and the perspective of the institutional researcher. Benefits include access to data, networking and consulting, efficiency, increased researcher visibility, and better understanding of…

Interviews with 1,435 urban, low-income African American and Hispanic youth about sexual experiences and behaviors revealed that interviewer age affected the reporting of sensitive behaviors. The strongest effects were observed for Hispanic women, who reported more sexual activity to younger interviewers. (Author/SV)