A preservice-teacher educator discusses the importance of teachers becoming designers of classroom research and generators of learning theory, and describes her own development as a teacher-researcher. Stages of teacher research are outlined, including posing questions, developing a research plan, collecting and analyzing data, and sharing and…

This article proposes a reconceptualization of multicultural teacher education and summarizes basic principles of cultural-historical theory. It also considers how cultural-historical theory can inform research design and offers examples from a preservice teacher education course of how constructs from cultural-historical theory can be used to…

Asserts that journal's three studies examining cultural influences on emotional development reflect Western cultural model, using Western scripts for how data were collected and meaningfulness attributed. Addresses: (1) search for universals versus cultural specificity; (2) effect of unit of analysis; (3) whose perspective is used when proclaiming…

Introduces workshop papers proposing research agendas based on the assumption that street children's public image hinders both research and program development. Argues that research emphasis should shift to analysis of children's relationship to the street environment; this approach, derived from social science research, entails innovative and…

Describes differences between systems-rationalist and subjectivist-interpretivist inquiry. Maintains that much of the enormous potential of subjectivist-interpretivist research could be lost due to the consequences of choices and compromises that researchers make in conceptualizing, proposing, and conducting subjectivist inquiry in the…

This paper offers reasons for using traditional quantitative research methods and illustrates some of the considerations demanding rigor in a study on gender discrimination in school-administrator salaries. Traditional quantitative methods provide a meaningful language based on numbers and objectivity, and they are less time-consuming and complex…

Instructional Research Online (InTRO) was established in 1994 as a repository of research papers, media, and other artifacts related to research in instructional technology. The World Wide Web site (http://intro.base.org) includes sections on reviews of books and media, original research, links to resources in instructional technology, and…

The point of departure for this article is the title of a book edited by David Fetterman, "Qualitative Approaches to Educational Evaluation--The Silent Scientific Revolution." This article addresses the question of how the shift to a qualitative, phenomenological approach has impinged on research and evaluation in distance education.…

The process of focus-finding in qualitative research is ongoing and dynamic, involves researcher choices and decisions (rather than pure discovery), and is a process of social construction in which the researcher interacts with the research setting. Focus-finding is discussed in the context of a qualitative research study of the integration of…

Public schools in the big cities and urban areas will become proportionally more minority and poor in the 1980's and 1990's. The traditional measures used to collect data on minority population have proved to be inaccurate. The following items are needed and will be of value to people working in urban public schools: (1) data which distinguish…

This paper sketches seven activities that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) should pay attention to over the next few years as it attempts to provide accurate and complete data on the elementary and secondary education system of the United States. The activities are: (1) act aggressively to meet the major problems of data…

Many difficulties are encountered when large-scale monitoring of federally-funded programs (including Title VII bilingual education programs) has been attempted. These difficulties may be categorized as follows: (1) differences in perception of the purpose of monitoring; (2) variance in the definition of the treatment (program) and expectations…

Perspectives on interdisciplinary research are considered in terms of project planning, the choice of problem-solving approach, the research field, project organization, informal organization, and integration of knowledge. Interdisciplinary studies were investigaged through following a number of research projects by means of field trips,…

There is some confusion in discriminating basic educational research (which explores the why's and how's of learning) from applied research (which seeks to test the implications of basic research results) because some investigations are conceived without a clear purpose. Thus, it is not uncommon for researchers to suggest implications that…

"Student Powered" research, defined as a comprehensive reliance on or involvement of students as research staff members in all or most phases of a serious research effort, is discussed. It is suggested that there are several conditions necessary for student powered mail survey questionnaire research projects to be initiated, that there…