This paper discusses the mixing of theories that make up the theoretical framework the researcher uses to apply the systematic method of narrative analysis called the Listening Guide (L. Brown and others, 1991). The Listening Guide, a voice-centered relational method was developed to uncover how girls and women talk about themselves through their…

This investigation was conducted to explore contemporary critiques that challenge the growing body of scholarly research that would reveal and support diverse understandings of the world. Principal methods for this deconstruction of contemporary critiques include document analysis of writing that examines content and author location and context…

This paper describes current phases of two research projects: a completed one in southern Appalachia and another one to begin in North Dakota. The paper explains that the Appalachian project investigated the effects the widespread stereotype of Appalachian illiteracy has had on Appalachian literacy learners; while the North Dakota study is going…

This paper describes the methodology used in a research study involving the collection of data through a Web-based survey, focusing on the advantages and limitations of the methodology. The Teacher motivation and Job Satisfaction Survey was administered to K-12 teachers. Many of the difficulties occurred during the planning phase, as opposed to…

The focus of this paper is causal inference in social and educational research. A concern with causality has had a profound impact on the kinds of questions that may be addressed in research, on how they must be formulated, and on the methodology that must be applied. In the social sciences the prevailing experimental paradigm is used to address…

D. Wood and J. Erskine (1976) and B. Thompson (1989) provided bibliographies of roughly 130 applications of canonical correlation analysis, but the features of such reports have not been widely studied. This report examines the features of recent canonical reports, including substantive inquiries, but also measurement applications examining…

This paper outlines two types of discriminant analysis, predictive discriminant analysis (PDA) and descriptive discriminant analysis (DDA). Important differences between PDA and DDA are introduced and discussed using a heuristic data set, specifically indicating the portions of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) output relevant…

This manuscript examines the uneasy relationship between qualitative and quantitative research. The multiple perspectives of qualitative researchers, quantitative researchers, and critical theorists should be "harmoniously engaged in an earnest dialogue, lifting the discussion to a new level of insight, making progress toward workable…

This paper discusses one author's decision to write a fictive story about her experiences as a beginning professor. It highlights her obligations to: a poster presentation on an arts-based approach to research; the audience who would attend the poster presentation and read the text; others who might appear in the text; and herself. Overall, her…

This paper proposes a new typology for understanding common research errors that expands on the four types of error commonly discussed in the research literature. Examples are presented to illustrate Type I and Type II errors, errors related to the interpretation of statistically significant and nonsignificant results respectively, with attention…

This paper takes as its data the assumptions, processes of deduction, and data types used in leading publications of historiometric studies of creativity. The paper uses this data to question the philosophical assumptions of the historiometrics of creativity from within its own positivist paradigm and to argue that its conclusions are…

Critics of bilingual education claim that research supporting native language instruction is weak, a claim that has been echoed by some prominent supporters of bilingual education. This claim has had a damaging effect on the political fate of bilingual education in some states. This paper argues that the primary metric used to support this…

This paper reviews the literature on methods for dealing with missing data, discusses four commonly used methods, and illustrates these approaches with a small hypothetical data set. Most studies contain some missing data, and the reasons data are missing are many and varied. Four commonly used methods have been identified in the literature: (1)…

A study was sponsored by the U.S. National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) amid the enthusiasm for bringing the power of rigorous, objective, scientific understanding to bear on improving decisions about educational programming and thus student achievement. There is…

This study compared the accuracy of predicting two-group membership obtained from K-means clustering with those derived from linear probability modeling, linear discriminant function, and logistic regression under various data properties. Multivariate normally distributed populations were simulated based on combinations of population proportions,…