The acquisition of variation is a fundamental -- but poorly understood -- part of child language acquisition. We fully endorse Shin and Miller's call for us to recognize the importance of this core issue, and argue that our understanding could be further enriched by greater reliance on convergent methods. As such, we implore researchers to…

Systematic reviews should be reported completely and accurately so that users can interpret and appraise the review findings appropriately. In this commentary, we describe key features of a major update of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses statement--PRISMA 2020--and discuss its implications for research…

Methodologist. Methodologist. Methodologist. Methodologist. Saying a word enough times in rapid-fire succession can make it lose its meaning. Your focus shifts from understanding of the word and its multiple signifiers, to the sounds you make when you say it, the movement of your lips and the shape of your mouth, the touch of your tongue on your…

This article conceptualizes the notion of magic(al)ing in relation to post-pandemic ways of thinking about data production and analyses. Revisiting old data produced pre-COVID-19 and engaging with new data produced during COVID-19, we consider the possibilities and potential of magic(al)ing as a theoretical concept. We think with several ideas…

In the 2018 meta-analysis of "Educational Psychology Review" entitled "Null effects of perceptual disfluency on learning outcomes in a text-based educational context" by Xie, Zhou, and Liu, we identify some errors and inconsistencies in both the methodological approach and the reported results regarding coding and effect sizes.…

In this opinion piece, I discuss a range of issues associated with the inclusion of gender diverse students' responses in the analyses of large-scale mathematics education data sets. Definitions of the terms gender and sex over time are examined, as well as the associated gender and sex categories that have and can be used. Of particular interest…

In this commentary, I identify some common themes in the six articles in this special issue, including the importance of aligning research methods with research questions and embracing the complexity of educational phenomena. Then, I reflect on some differences in how authors responded to the request to discuss the role of their inquiry world view…

When evidence enters humanities and society, with its scientific and effective characteristics, it gradually becomes a new paradigm for educational research and practice. It is becoming popular worldwide (Slavin, 2020). At present, all over the world, evidence-oriented evidence-based research has become one of the critical analysis methods in the…

Young and Holsteen (YH) introduce a number of tools for evaluating model uncertainty. In so doing, they are careful to differentiate their method from existing forms of model averaging. The fundamental difference lies in the way in which the underlying estimates are weighted. Whereas standard approaches to model averaging assign higher weight to…

In this article, I comment on the prospect of integrating an intersectionality perspective into the developmental sciences. I do this by sharing impressions, insights, and questions that have emerged whilst attempting to look at and to look through an intersectionality lens. My comments focus on three main topics. First, I speculate what forms…

Across our combined 15 years of experience as methodologists and research methodology instructors, we have found that the concept of 'failure' is only a small portion of methodological literature and is similarly missing from scholarship on teaching and learning social science research methodology. We define failure in terms of our inability as…

The author comments on Noel Entwistle's paper "Contributions of Educational Psychology to Understanding Student Learning: What Has Been Discovered -- What More Could Be Done?" He begins the article by expressing his delight because he feels Entwistle's work has been a beacon in the understanding of student learning and his contributions…

In this special issue response paper, we pick up from prior discussions to suggest areas where we think policy sociology can benefit from further conversation and research. In particular, we bring together our respective readings and work on policy mobilities, in conversation with the contributions of this special issue, to think further about…

The commenter's proposal may be a reasonable method for addressing uncertainty in predictive modeling, where the goal is to predict "y." In a treatment effects framework, where the goal is causal inference by conditioning-on-observables, the commenter's proposal is deeply flawed. The proposal (1) ignores the definition of…

This reflective commentary on the character and role of methodology in educational and social inquiry recounts my 45-year journey as an applied researcher and evaluator, primarily in the domain of education. The journey starts in graduate school in the early 1970s, where the methodological challenge was to master "the proper methods, properly…