When researching with or about families in home-based research, there are numerous unexpected ethical issues that can emerge, particularly in qualitative research. This paper is based on reflective accounts of four homed-based research projects, two in the UK and two Australia, which examined ethical dilemmas identified when engaged in home-based…

This article explores the affordances of translanguaging as methodology by reflecting upon the role of the multilingual repertoires of research participants (including the researcher) in shaping an ethnographic inquiry on 'language cafés' (LCs), understood as public events which provide a non-formal learning space for (foreign) language…

This book presents ground-breaking research on the ways the Arts fosters motivation and engagement in both academic and non-academic domains. It reports on mixed method, international research that investigated how the Arts make a difference in the lives of young people. Drawing on the findings of a longitudinal quantitative study led by the…

National mechanisms for comparing the research profiles of higher education institutions (HEIs) have become increasingly common. Probably the best known of these is the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) conducted in the United Kingdom, and used as the basis for the allocation of research funding. Such exercises are expensive. They would have…

In this article, we set out to explore what we describe as the use of video in various modalities. For us, modality is a synthesizing construct that draws together and differentiates between the notion of "video" both as a method and as a methodology. It encompasses the use of the term video as both product and process, and as a data…

This article discusses the first stages of the work of the Teacher Education Group (TEG) in building research capacity in teacher education research and identifies the potential of the model adopted for future European initiatives in the field. The TEG work is part of the second phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), based…

The commodification of research in the social sciences sees a focus on "inputs" rather than "outputs" and an emphasis on the "science" rather than the "social". The empirical prevails at the expense of the critical, with lessening interest in, and support for, knowledge designed to interrogate orthodoxy.…

This article is a response to a request to consider the following three questions in relation to the recent history of research into student learning in higher education: What do we know?, What do we need to know?, and What might we do about it? A survey of article titles reporting on research into student learning was carried out in three key…

In March 2004, Stephen Ball and others presented a symposium at the conference of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) on the necessity of theory in educational research. Like Ball, I have observed that theory, not just social theory, is a difficult space and one that divides researchers (those comfortable with theory and those less…

This article outlines the planning towards a research design to learn about leadership as it is constructed, experienced and developed in schools. It is intended that the research would go beyond an individual's account to gain an insight into the relationships and social dynamic within the organization. The hypothesis is that the degree of…

This article critically explores the value of ethnography for enhancing context-sensitive approaches to the study of academic writing. Drawing on data from two longitudinal studies, student writing in the United Kingdom and professional academic writing in Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal, the author illustrates the different contributions…

This article reviews medical case study research from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States that identified characteristics, etiological factors, and treatment methods of reading disorders. It also addresses the validity of case study research from an historic and current-day perspective. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

An evaluation of one therapeutic service offered to sexually abused children in the United Kingdom exposed the methodological issue of false negatives among the comparison group, suggesting that researchers cannot assume that nonreferred comparison subjects have not actually experienced sexual abuse. (DB)

The need for an increased use of statistical data and quantitative analysis in many areas of science policy is emphasized in this report of the hearing on science evaluation methods used in Great Britain. The testimony given by Professor Benjamin Martin of the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex in England explains how…

The paper describes an "Outreach Study" in a British community which identified 46 adults with mental handicap over 50 years of age who were not in contact with specialist mental handicap service providers. The study's methodology and process are described including a discussion of issues concerned with defining the population.…