In this introduction we reflect on two key questions that initiated this special issue on qualitative inquiry: What can qualitative researchers do to regain their post-paradigm-wars cache? How do we avoid distracting "science wars" in the future? We suggest that the strong tendency to narrow the research methods accepted as…

Do academics who commercialize their inventions have a different professional character than those who do not? The author conducted a nationwide survey in Hungary including 1,562 academics of hard sciences from 14 universities. According to the cluster analysis based on their participation in research commercialization (RC), university scholars…

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…

This article describes the emergence and influence of evidence-based practice and data-based decision making in educational systems. Increasingly, educators and consumers want to know that resources allocated to educational efforts yield strong effects for all learners. This trend is reflected by the widespread influence of evidence-based practice…

In this manuscript, we examine three layers of censorship related to the publication of qualitative research studies: (a) the global level of federal legislation and the definition of the "gold standard" of educational research, (b) the decline in the number of qualitative studies published in a top-tiered early childhood educational…

Professionals mostly agree that scientific research should guide practice in education. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA; 2004) and the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) require that students with disabilities receive research-based practices in the "least restrictive environment." Because the least…

Prior to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, scientific research to support development of curriculum materials or to demonstrate curricular efficacy was not required. NCLB transformed the development and publishing process for K-12 educational materials by prompting publishers to increase funding for experimentally based research on educational…

By its emphasis on arbitrary standards and misleading systems of accountability, the No Child Left Behind Act has had deleterious effects on classroom practice, teacher education, and even educational research. The new constraints on educational research, driven by a logic of randomized field tests, are part of a larger and more invidious…

As a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002, the field of education has seen a heavy emphasis on the use of "scientifically based research" for designing and testing the effectiveness of new and existing educational programs. According to NCLB, when addressing basic cause and effect questions scientifically based…

The literature of special education generally and special education law specifically tends to use "scientifically based research" (SBR), along with its shorthand "scientifically based" variation, and related terms such as "evidence-based," "research-based," and "peer-reviewed research" (PRR) rather…

In this article, the author begins to trace the concept "scientifically based research" in federal legislation, in the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, and in the reports of several National Research Council committees. She also discusses how this concept has produced a certain "scientism" that has been deployed to…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was passed in 2002. This legislation broadly states federal policy regarding education and is situated within the historical context of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Like any federal legislation, NCLB consists of the legislation itself but…

In this article, the author argues that there appears to be a thrust, at least from the federal government, to provide a rigid definition of what counts as "science": namely, randomized field trials. Code words for this method pervade the No Child Left Behind Act; the phrase "scientifically based research" occurs more than 100…

Examines the definitions of scientifically based research in education seen in recent national legislation and policy and used to affect decisions about the future of education programs and directions of education research. Suggests there are differences among these definitions and their purposes, asserting that these definitions, together with…

This article reviews the debate in the USA about quality in educational research which has underpinned particular approaches to educational research being mandated in federal legislation. It argues that the movement towards 'evidence-based policy and practice' oversimplifies complex problems and is being used to warrant governmental incursion into…