The field of special education is recognized for conducting research designed to improve the quality of life for the children and families we serve. However, our field has been criticized for empirical approaches that are inconsistent with the values and beliefs we articulate as central to our scientific practice. As such, a shift in our research…

This article examines the role of spending time with others in and through artistic research and practice. I draw from my doctoral work which took me on a cross-Canada journey visiting 125 artists in their studios. Following the studio visits, I made a series of paintings of artists' studios, however a year later these same paintings were cut up…

Constructed broadly according to the principles of musical fugue, this piece of creative writing is presented as a performance autoethnography, enacted through a multi-voiced ethnodrama between a fictionalized version of the author and two imaginary doctoral students. In successive episodes, it discusses the difference between autoethnography and…

Courses: Research Methods, Qualitative Research Methods, Ethnography. Objectives: The aims of this class exercise are: (1) To define an autoethnographic approach to communication research; (2) To understand autoethnography as both a research process and product; (3) To emphasize the varied forms of autoethnographic research and writing; (4) To…

That idea that problem-based learning (PBL) is more motivating that traditional education has been prevalent since the inception of PBL at McMaster University in the late 1960s. Evidencing this through empirical research, however, has proven to be a lot more problematic. This paper retraces how the discourse on motivation started from a laymen's…

A persisting gap in the field of disciplinary literacy is lack of conceptual clarity around the term "discipline." In this theoretical article, the author explains some concerns with existing definitional imprecision and argues that genre-oriented activity theory offers a way to reconceptualize the focus of disciplinary literacy,…

How do research participants feel about having their 'ordinary' lives researched? This article focuses on how research participants manage the sharing of details emerging "out of" their ordinary lives in the context of research -- an activity which, for most, is "outside of" the ordinary. Despite two significant research turns…

This paper analyses the phenomenon of the death of informants. Based on his own experience with the long-term (1999-2016) research of Voyvodovo -- the only Czech village in Bulgaria, the author shows what the death of one's informants means for the research and the researcher. The author argues that any long-term fieldwork entails emotional…

In considering the contribution of educational psychology to an understanding of student learning, Noel Entwistle suggests the need to start by deciding the purpose of research in this field, and then consider the contributions already made, and what might be the way forward. Looking at the approaches to research used in exploring student learning…

Oral historians have declared the methodology a social justice project. This essay advances that discussion, positing that oral history methodology may represent a more specific "racial" justice project when coupled with critical race theory. An examination of the history of African American education scholarship, we argue, supports this…

In this article, I revisit the concept of activist educational research to consider a wider array of methodological approaches that support the documentation and transformation of systems of oppression, from youth participatory action research projects to 'studying up.' Although activist researchers often turn to participatory methods, I examine…

There is a growing literature that seeks to explore what is 'sensitive' about 'sensitive' research. In order to problematise and interrogate the concept of what may or may not be considered 'sensitive' research, this paper draws on four related projects exploring sex, intimacy and relationships for young people, over 16 years, who have…

In this paper, we argue that William Stephenson, Qmethodology, when demonstrated through the research conducted for the SANCOOP: "Climate & Beliefs" project can provide guidance for doing context-specific mixed-method research and has implications for climate change education in South Africa. In the project, Q-methodology was mixed…

This book describes the practice of poetic inquiry and takes the reader through the process of translating lived experience into poetry that attends to the lives of others. Using her own writing--from early drafts to published poems--Apol demonstrates elements of poetic inquiry that both give it strength and make it complicated: the importance of…

Several programs of research have sought to assess the replicability of scientific findings in different fields, including economics and psychology. These programs attempt to replicate several findings and use the results to say something about large-scale patterns of replicability in a field. However, little work has been done to understand the…