Education researchers often encounter scenarios where an abrupt policy change occurs within or across jurisdictions or populations that affect key student outcomes. Difference-in-differences is a research design analysts can use to estimate causal effects of these "natural experiments." This article introduces education researchers to…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous upheaval in schooling. In addition to devasting effects on students, these disruptions had consequences for researchers conducting studies on education programs and policies. Given the likelihood of future large-scale disruptions, it is important for researchers to plan resilient studies and think critically…

This paper presents findings on the role of the university and institutional support for climate change education interventions at two universities in East Africa. The findings were part of a larger study on opportunities and challenges for climate change education at universities in the African context: A comparative case study of Makerere…

This article chronicles the experience of an action researcher who was conducting a study in a post-secondary setting when COVID-19 swept across the globe and interrupted the research. The researcher set out to understand the aspects that promote and increase student investment in the classroom, and what she could do to positively impact student…

The COVID-19 pandemic posed many ethical and practical challenges for academic research. Some of these have been documented, particularly in relation to health research, but less attention has been paid to the dilemmas encountered by educational and social science research. Given that pandemics are predicted to be more frequent, it is vital to…

This manuscript focuses on student veterans' best option to start their post-high-school education: attending community colleges. It illustrates this point using the story of the author, a US Army combat veteran who began his career at a community college, and other veterans who also began their college careers at the community college. Using…

Background: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a condition which affects an individual's ability to use and understand language. Terminological confusion, and the use of non-evidence-based diagnostic criteria has impacted access to services for this population for several decades. Changes in terminology and diagnosis were proposed as part of…

The global COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to re-examine the possibility of organising virtual conferences in mathematics education, in which the social needs of participants can also be addressed. In this study we investigated the future impact that this change may have on the format and nature of mathematics education conferences.…

Background: The advantages of including people with learning disabilities in research teams have been well described, but it is rare for researchers with learning disabilities to be employed at a university. This paper explores the extent to which university recruitment procedures are accessible to job applicants with learning disabilities.…

At this particular historical juncture of the Anthropocene, when it is clear that humanity is responsible for fundamental changes to the biosphere, the political necessity of questioning the normative status of human life at the center demands reconfiguring our relationship with each other. And while environmental educators and researchers have…

Purpose: This article aims to subvert the nature/culture and subject/object divides that structure the dominant Western educational research paradigm by stepping beyond an exclusively human conversation and activating our ecological imaginations in the face of intensifying anthropogenic climate change. Design/Approach/Methods: Informed by animist…

In this research article, Sarah Dryden-Peterson explores the concept of researcher positionality, focusing on its malleability over time. The methodological analysis is situated in an empirical study of history teaching and learning in Cape Town, South Africa, schools in 1998 and 2019. Dryden-Peterson argues that researcher positionality is often…

Focused reflection is teacher directed professional learning that uses ongoing formative assessment aligned with research-based instructional practices and standards. It allows teachers to operate as researchers and hold themselves accountable for what they are teaching and what students are learning. This article provides a table that outlines…

This article addresses methodological issues related to the consequences of researchers' range of insider identities that emerge over the course of completing subsequent stages of qualitative migration research projects. Taking on a temporal approach to the insider status evolving over the course of field entry, data collection, data analysis, and…

In this paper we critically examine the research landscape in South Africa. We do this by documenting the progression and transformation of the country's National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated researchers from 2005 to 2015. Results indicate that most NRF-rated researchers in South Africa are white and male but this trend is slowly changing with…