No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have increased the emphasis on analyzing data on disproportionality. Data required to answer basic questions include: (1) total number of students enrolled; (2) total number of each racial/ethnic group enrolled; (3) total number of students in the category under…

Academic journals are the primary mode of communication among researchers, and they play a central role in the creation, diffusion, and use of knowledge. This article updates previous attempts to identify a core set of journals that most education scholars would acknowledge as consequential sources. On the basis of nominations from a panel of…

This paper critically examines the application of research into cognitive neuroscience to educational contexts. It first considers recent warnings from within the neuroscientific community itself about the limitations of current neuroscientific knowledge and the urgent need to dispel popular "neuromyths" which have become accepted in…

The role of educational technologies in improving educational practices and outcomes has been criticized as over-hyped and insignificant. With few exceptions, the state of education has changed less than expected as a result of tools such as computers and the Internet. To a considerable degree, this is due to the minor role educational technology…

The aim of this paper is to explore the demand side of the market for educational research. That is, what types of educational research do teachers find useful for advancing their instructional practice and under what conditions do they access the research currently available? Although teachers have mixed opinions--both positive and negative--of…

This report critically examines studies of how scientific research drives innovation which is then translated into socio-economic benefits. It focuses on research evaluation insights that are relevant not only to the academic community, but also to policymakers and evaluation practitioners--and particularly to biomedical and health research…

Methodological and political issues arise during the designing, conducting, and reporting of campus-climate studies for LGBT students. These issues interact; making a decision about a methodological issue (e.g., sample size) has an impact on a political issue (e.g., how well the findings will be received). Ten key questions that must be addressed…

This article discusses the potential of Google Scholar as an alternative or complement to the Web of Science and Scopus for measuring the impact of journal articles in education. Three handbooks on research in science education, language education, and educational technology were used to identify a sample of 112 accomplished scholars. Google…

One of the great strengths of Jim Kaput's research program was his relentless drive towards scaling up his innovative approach to teaching the mathematics of change and variation. The SimCalc mission, "democratizing access to the mathematics of change," was enacted by deliberate efforts to reach an increasing number of teachers and students each…

Background: Active Support (AS) is an approach for promoting increased engagement in activities by people with intellectual disability (ID). Method: We critically reviewed the available research on AS, and added a commentary to help guide future research and practice. Results: Despite weaknesses in the research design of some studies, there is…

The gap between research and clinical practice is one of the key challenges facing family therapy. Clinicians often fail to incorporate research findings into their practice because they do not know how to search, evaluate, or apply research to their clinical work. The purpose of this article is to help clinicians become better consumers of…

Our goal is to deconstruct the text formed by practitioners' narratives about the use of the claim "It's research based" to understand both how this claim is used and received by practitioners and how it may impact on teachers' attitudes. We map a range of differences in these narratives about what is "real" (research versus…

The annual report reviews research priorities, major Institute of Education Sciences (IES) updates, and recent resolutions. National Board for Education Sciences (NBES) members conclude that the Institute has made important initial progress in transforming education into an evidence-based field in which decision-makers routinely seek out the best…

District central office administrators increasingly face policy demands to use "evidence" in their decision making. These demands up the ante on education policy researchers and policy makers to better understand what evidence use in district central offices entails and the conditions that may support it. To that end, the authors conducted a…

This paper attempts to define evaluation use and manipulable variables related to it. Approaches to defining evaluation use have included typologies inventorying kinds of evaluation use, threshold criteria defining accepted levels of evidence, construct or operational definitions, and dependence on the perspective of the decision maker. None of…