Recent changes in higher education have confronted education research with a conundrum: how our traditionally multidisciplinary field can refine itself as a unified discipline. In this address I sketch out what this conundrum may mean for education research, both substantively and methodologically, in the future. I propose that one starting point…

Accounts of how research capacity in education can be developed often make reference to electronic networks and online resources. This paper presents a theoretically driven analysis of the role of one such resource, an online archive of educational research studies that includes not only digitised collections of original documents but also videos…

Certain common elements can be identified regarding teacher education development in advanced knowledge-based economies. One of these is the attempt, up until relatively recently, to develop a solid foundation of scientific professional knowledge for what Basil Bernstein called the teacher education "Trivium": roughly speaking,…

Researchers and practitioners need to exchange information in order for education research to become more useful. Practitioners need to develop more understanding of research and how to interpret its findings in light of local conditions. The What Works Clearinghouse, a project of the Institute for Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of…

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate application of a new framework, the validation framework (VF), to assist researchers in evaluating mixed research studies. Based on an earlier work by Dellinger and Leech, a description of the VF is delineated. Using the VF, three studies from education, health care, and counseling fields are…

In comments on the proposed federal guidelines for stimulus funds, some researchers say there's no evidence for the policies touted. Among education researchers, one complaint about the U.S. Department of Education under former President George W. Bush was that it relentlessly promoted "scientific research in education," while at the…

A questionnaire completed by 119 researchers defending doctoral theses in Finland before 1986 shows that the average age for women defending a thesis was 39.7, an average of 2.4 years older than for men. An average of 3.5 years was required for doctoral studies, with about 13.6 months spent in final thesis revision. (SLD)

This report presents a detailed picture of educational research and development in the United States. It explores conceptual structures and gives a background description of American education. A brief history of educational research in the United States is followed by long chapters on the sponsors, performers, and management of educational…