Discussed are the assumptions which underpin research studies of the effects of pupil, school, and local education authority characteristics on student achievement in Great Britain. The purpose is to clarify the necessary limitations on knowledge imposed by various research methods and to suggest how these might be improved. (RM)

A reply to Plomin's critique and some criticisms of Munsinger's review of adopted child literature are presented. Selective bias in adoptee samples, implicit assumptions in models that lead to heritability estimates, and problems produced by lack of an accepted model of environmental transmission are also discussed. (Author/RD)

Examines a model for measuring children's verbal interactions in small heterogeneous or homogeneous cooperative groups using computers. Considers research design, type of task, and data collection and analysis. Concludes that a model incorporating cognitively oriented and socially oriented talk will expand understanding of the nature of children's…

Canada's Exemplary Schools Project, a study of 21 secondary schools nationwide, involved continual tension between the need for a coherent and shared national research approach and the need to allow local variation and initiative. A member of the national coordinating committee explores how this tension affected research design and the writing of…

Presents a prototypical case illustrating what positivist research means and argues that even critics of positivist research are logically committed to propositions that can be tested only through positivist research paradigms. The relationship between the nature of a community's research enterprise and its educational provisions must be causal.…

Educational researchers are not engaged in discovering mechanistic universal truths sought by positivists or tidy prescriptions about what works. Instead, they provide guidelines and interpretive material to liberate the teacher's intelligence so that the teacher can use whatever ability he or she can achieve. (SLD)

Reviews elements of traditional scientific method and trends among Native American and other scholars to include intuitive, spiritual, and personal categories of understanding. Suggests four areas of focus to evaluate the new scholarship: importance of the research, integrity of the process, explanation of the methodology, and acknowledgment of…

Describes the community-based research approach of Barbara Bowman, a non-Indian studying psychological issues at Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. Reviews tribal-researcher relations at the reservation and discusses tribal requirements for research, including approval of the study, tribal ownership of the data, and formal presentations of…

This commentary on a study that found the use of a system of least prompts produced increases in rates of conversations between preschoolers with and without disabilities discusses the benefits of the hierarchical model of intervention that maximizes the usefulness of research to practitioners. (Author/CR)

Presents a developmental framework for the study of culture and cognition in which cultural practice is a key organizing construct. Argues that systematic analysis of either cultural change or cognitive development requires that they be understood relative to one another in a single integrative treatment. (Author/SD)

Comments on Skinner, Zimmer-Gembeck and Connell's study (PS 528 522) which investigated the relationship between elementary school students' beliefs-performance cycles and their perceived control and classroom engagement. Notes methodological and theoretical issues and controversial issues raised by the study. Discusses the links to other…

Considers the competing demands placed on evaluators in relation to the service (characteristics of the intervention), the sample (people participating), and methodology or research design. Explores compromises that may be required between scientific ideals and real-world limitations, and assesses implications for obtaining meaningful results in…

This commentary on a previous article that demonstrates three ways of analyzing qualitative interview data (content, cultural models, and narrative analyses), discusses the need for greater articulation of the complexities of interpretation and a greater emphasis on verification procedures in early intervention qualitative research. (CR)

Studies of self-directed learning (SDL) have generally concentrated on who self-directed learners are and what/how they learn. In 1980, Gibbons et al. used biographies of 20 "expert" self-directed learners to explore the principles and determinants of SDL. Tough (1967), Guglielmino (1977), and Spear and Mocker (1984) have respectively…

This book presents the personal experiences of two educational researchers as they learned to conduct classroom research and combines their personal stories with an academic argument about the kinds of classroom research needed in the future. The chapters in this volume emphasize how the social science disciplines of psychology and anthropology…