In this article, the authors examine the interconnections among education researchers' misconceptions about the quality of the education research literature. Specifically, the authors catalog the sequence of events that, when taken together with a series of contradictory graphs presented by influential scholars in prominent settings, may have…

The present article responds briefly to the comments, in this issue of "Educational Researcher," of Petrosino and of Robinson to the "Propagation of Misinformation About Frequencies of RFTs/RCTs in Education: A Cautionary Tale." The authors emphasize that the context of how the quality of education research is perceived both within and outside the…

The purpose of the present study is to provide a historical account and metasynthesis of which statistical techniques are most frequently used in the fields of education and psychology. Six articles reviewing the "American Educational Research Journal" from 1969 to 1997 and five articles reviewing the psychological literature from 1948 to 2001…

The present article provides a primer on using effect sizes in research. A small heuristic data set is used in order to make the discussion concrete. Additionally, various admonitions for best practice in reporting and interpreting effect sizes are presented. Among these is the admonition to not use Cohen's benchmarks for "small," "medium," and…

Researchers have conducted studies of curriculum for doctoral students in various disciplines and subdisciplines. In this study, the authors examined methods (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods) requirements for doctoral programs in education. Such requirements operationalize visions about the meaning of educational research and the…

This article reviews the literature on interventions targeting the academic performance of students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and does so within the context of the statistical significance testing controversy. Both the arguments for and against null hypothesis statistical significance tests are reviewed. Recent standards…

Arthur Levine's (2007) recent report on the academic preparation of education doctoral students, Educating Researchers, http://www.edschools.org/EducatingResearchers/educating_researchers.pdf is highly critical of both AERA and the scholarly training of education doctoral students. One criticism Levine (2007) offers is his view that educational…

Canonical correlation (CC) analysis is discussed with a view toward providing an intuitive understanding of how the technique operates. CC analysis entails calculation of one or more sets of canonical variate coefficients (CVC), i.e., weights which can be applied to the variables in a study. A canonical function (CF) always consists of exactly two…

As the 1994 publication manual of the American Psychological Association emphasized, "p" values are affected by sample size. As a result, it can be helpful to interpret the results of statistical significant tests in a sample size context by conducting so-called "what if" analyses. However, these methods can be inaccurate…

Reviews practices regarding tests of statistical significance and policies of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Decades of misuse of statistical significance testing are described, and revised editorial policies to improve practice are highlighted. Correct interpretation of statistical tests, interpretation of effect sizes, and…

Multivariate methods are being used with increasing frequency in educational research because these methods control "experimentwise" error rate inflation, and because the methods best honor the nature of the reality to which the researcher wishes to generalize. This paper: explains the basic logic of canonical analysis; illustrates that…

Surveyed AERA members regarding their perceptions of: statistical issues and statistical significance testing; the general linear model; stepwise methods; score reliability; type I and II errors; sample size; statistical probabilities as exclusive measures of effect size; p values as direct measures of result value; and p values evaluating…

An improved quantitative science would emphasize the use of confidence intervals (CIs), especially CIs for effect sizes. This article reviews definitions and issues related to developing these intervals. CIs for effect sizes are especially valuable because they facilitate meta-analytic thinking and interpretations of intervals via comparison with…

Investigated the patterns of statistical usage and reporting in 756 articles published in the "American Educational Research Journal" (AERJ) and the "Journal of Counseling Psychology" (JCP) over 10 years. Evaluated the analytic practices used. Also discusses changes that may be necessary to improve statistics in behavioral…

This paper explains in user-friendly terms why multivariate statistics are so important in educational research. The basic logic of canonical correlation analysis is presented as a simple or bivariate Pearson "r" procedure. It is noted that all statistical tests implicitly involve the calculation of least squares weights, and that all…