Researchers need to know what is an appropriate sample size for interview work, but how does one decide upon an acceptable number of people to interview? This question is not relevant to case study work where one would typically interview every member of a case, or in situations where it is both desirable and feasible to interview all target…

Researchers often seek to synthesize results of multiple studies on the same topic to draw statistical or substantive conclusions and to estimate effect sizes that will inform power analyses for future research. The most popular synthesis approach is meta-analysis. There have been few discussions and applications of other synthesis approaches.…

This short take presents story-mapping as a research technique that incorporates multiple methods and data sources to build visual narratives of individual and collective experiences. The goals of story-mapping are the following: (1) iteratively synthesize the collection, analysis, and representation of spatial, visual, and textual information as…

This essay utilizes critical race theory composite counterstorytelling to tell a story about Alberto, a first-generation Xicano doctoral student who is presenting his dissertation research proposal to his qualitative research class. Through Alberto's character, I discuss my complicated process of designing and conducting a research study.…

When searching for scholarly documents, researchers often stick with the same familiar handful of databases. Yet, just beyond these limited horizons lie dozens of alternatives with which they could search more effectively, whether for quick lookups or thorough searches in systematic reviews or meta-analyses. Searchsmart.org is a free website that…

This article discusses the methodological challenges of researching elite boys' schooling, in a study involving interviewing alumni who attended these schools from the 1970s to the 2020s. In particular, through a feminist poststructuralist methodological framing, it considers the necessity for researcher reflexivity in engaging in research in such…

In educational studies, the paradigm war over quantitative and qualitative research approaches has raged for more than half a century. The focus in the late twentieth century was on the distinction between the two approaches, and the motivation was to retain one of the approaches' supremacy. Since the early twenty-first century, there has been a…

In this article, I discuss my use of blind-portrait in which participants draw an image about 'who I am' in a particular context with their eyes closed. Blind-portrait, as an arts method, could provide a political and ethical tool to redefine the knowability of intercultural, educational research. It moves beyond and besides the…

As librarians consider ways to engage students in research, particularly those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), it's increasingly apparent that the transactional nature of the one-shot instructional model is inadequate for fostering thoughtful and critical discussions about information literacy and the scholarly…

In this Methods Showcase Article, we outline a workflow for running behavioral experiments online, with a focus on experiments that rely on presentation of complex stimuli and measurement of reaction times, which includes many psycholinguistic experiments. The workflow that we describe here relies on three tools: OpenSesame/OSWeb (open source)…

High-quality systematic literature reviews provide a systematic process for identifying, synthesizing, and critiquing multiple studies and, in turn, inform theory, research, practice, and policy. With a focus on special education systematic reviews, we propose four core principles (i.e., coherence, contextualization, generativity, and…

The purpose of this paper was to review best-practice methods of collecting and analyzing speech production data from minimally verbal autistic speakers. Data on speech production data in minimally verbal individuals are valuable for a variety of purposes, including phenotyping, clinical assessment, and treatment monitoring. Both perceptual…

Current approaches to research in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), in particular in relation to methods designed to interrogate policy and practice developments, tend not to focus on gathering empirical data through collaborative networks. This article provides a critical reflection on a novel qualitative methodological…

Working with undergraduates in an organic synthesis research laboratory presents a unique set of challenges. An undergraduate research program must be designed to focus on teaching students to "think like a chemist" while advancing the principal investigator's scientific agenda. However, as novices in the laboratory, undergraduate…

Qualitative research methods are used within special education research to provide insights about how and why phenomena occur. They can, however, be misunderstood and applied inappropriately. Our aim in this article is to provide an overview of qualitative methods, including their purpose, contributions to research involving students with learning…