Educational researchers often need to construct precise and reliable measurement scales of complex and varied representations such as participants' written work, videoed lesson segments and policy documents. Developing such scales using can be resource-intensive and time-consuming, and the outcomes are not always reliable. Here we present…

This research compares the performance measures reported by two bibliographic databases relevant to a set of authors who have published in predatory journals. The reliability of decision-making based on the information provided by uncontrolled bibliographic databases is examined to support rational decisions. A sample of authors who published in…

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini, has significantly impacted the educational landscape, offering unique opportunities for learning and assessment. In the realm of written assessment grading, traditionally viewed as a laborious and subjective process, this study sought to…

Comparative Judgement (CJ) is traditionally and primarily used to compare written texts. In this study we explored whether we could extend its use to comparing audio files. We used GCSE Music portfolios which contained a mix of audio recordings, musical scores and text documents. Fifteen judges completed two exercises: one comparing musical…

This paper aims to explore the philosophical theoretical foundations of two basic research paradigms, namely positivism and interpretivism. In the discussion process, literature in the relevant fields including academic papers and books is reviewed and used as support for the analysis. Firstly, the paper explores the differences between the…

A child's ability to comprehend speech in the mainstream classroom is vital for intellectual and social development. However, listening conditions are often sub-optimal; the presence of multiple talkers, high noise levels, and long reverberation times add to the challenge of listening with a developing auditory system. An assessment that captures…

In England, some secondary-level qualifications comprise non-exam assessments which need to undergo moderation before grading. Currently, moderation is conducted at centre (school) level. This raises challenges for maintaining the standard across centres. Recent technological advances enable novel moderation methods that are no longer bound by…

Metacognition is defined as a higher-order thinking skill that enables individuals to monitor, control, and regulate their thinking and behavior. In education, this skill is important, as learners need to self-regulate their learning behaviors for successful lifelong learning. Thus, it is essential for educators and learners alike to know their…

RobotReviewer is a tool for automatically assessing the risk of bias in randomized controlled trials, but there is limited evidence of its reliability. We evaluated the agreement between RobotReviewer and humans regarding the risk of bias assessment based on 1955 randomized controlled trials. The risk of bias in these trials was assessed via two…

Systematic reviews are vital for guiding practice, research and policy, although they are often slow and labour-intensive. Large language models (LLMs) could speed up and automate systematic reviews, but their performance in such tasks has yet to be comprehensively evaluated against humans, and no study has tested Generative Pre-Trained…

Empirical researchers using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) can work with crisp, multivalue, and fuzzy sets. The relative advantages of crisp and multivalue sets have been discussed in the QCA literature. There has been little reflection on the more frequent decision between crisp and fuzzy sets for which there often is no theoretical…

The procedures of carrying out factorial invariance to validate a construct were well developed to ensure the reliability of the construct that can be used across groups for comparison and analysis, yet mainly restricted to the frequentist approach. This motivates an update to incorporate the growing Bayesian approach for carrying out the Bayesian…

Automatic essay scoring (AES) is an essential educational application in natural language processing. This automated process will alleviate the burden by increasing the reliability and consistency of the assessment. With the advances in text embedding libraries and neural network models, AES systems achieved good results in terms of accuracy.…

The MATH taxonomy classifies questions according to the mathematical skills required to answer them. It was created to aid the development of more balanced assessments in undergraduate mathematics and has since been used to compare different assessment regimes across school and university. To date, there has been no systematic investigation of the…

Increasingly, the broader public, media and policymakers are looking to qualitative research to provide answers to our most pressing social questions. While an exciting and perhaps overdue moment for qualitative researchers, it is also a time when the method is coming under increasing scrutiny for a lack of reliability and transparency. The…