Trust is often treated as a binary where research participants either trust researchers or not, whereas in reality trust is multi-layered. Drawing on 10 months of fieldwork working with internally displaced persons and their non-displaced neighbours in rural Colombia, this article provides a more nuanced discussion of trust in research. It…

As aspiring professionals, pre-service teachers must become good consumers of educational research as well as competent researchers who can use tools of inquiry to improve their practice and conduct their own educational research. Many, however, resist learning research skills or find difficulties in doing so. This article presents ways in which…

Education researchers are increasingly working in practice-based partnerships in order to direct their research efforts toward important problems of practice. We argue for the creation of an infrastructure to support routine and sustained interaction among researchers, practitioners, and designers in order to make partnership efforts more…

This article considers the value of clarity--of theory, method and purposes--in educational research. It draws upon the work of early critical theorist, Theodor Adorno, and particularly his notion of negative dialectics and his challenge to the traditional dichotomy of theory and practice. Using the notions of virtuous mess and wicked clarity, I…

Ever since he stumbled into doing higher education research as a young academic in the 1980s, the author has been trying to understand it as a "field" of study. His career, as a former business lecturer, then an academic developer and now an associate professor for higher education working in an Education Faculty has given him opportunities to see…

Academic literacies research has been identified as an emerging but significant field in higher education. This article extends the discussions around methodology in academic literacies research by drawing on the current text and context debates in sociolinguistics and linguistic ethnography. It uses illustrations from a recent academic literacies…

Describes efforts undertaken as part of a large scale research project to engage schools and school personnel to participate as research subjects. Identifies planning, staffing, access, formalization, maintenance of participation, and dissemination of research findings to the participating organization or individuals as critical concerns for site…

A CASE IS MADE FOR CLINICAL RESEARCH AS A 2-WAY STREET BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE. EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IS DEFINED AS "THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LEARNING PROCESS IN AN EDUCATIONAL SETTING," THUS QUESTIONING THE RELEVANCY OF "BASIC" VS. "APPLIED" THEORIES.…

THE PROCESS OF TRANSLATING EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH INTO IMPROVED EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE IS DEFINED IN A FOUR-PHASE LINEAR TAXONOMY OF RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, DIFFUSION, AND ADOPTION. A SCHEMA DEVELOPING THESE PHASES OF THE CHANGE CONTINUUM DEFINES SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES, CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION, AND RELATION TO CHANGE. RESEARCH ACTIVITY IS LIMITED TO…

THE RAPID EXPANSION OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH HAS BEEN ACCOMPANIED BY THE FEELING THAT A CONNECTIVE LINK MUST BE ESTABLISHED BETWEEN THE AREAS OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE. THE INCREASED AVAILABILITY OF RESEARCH FUNDS NECESSITATES REFORMULATION AND CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SUITABLE MECHANISMS AND AGENCIES CAPABLE OF BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN…

This report explores the field research experience of the Documentation and Technical Assistance Project, an activity of the Center for New Schools in Chicago, Illinois. Using ethnography as a major research tool, DTA studied nine school sites, documented information on how the schools solved problems to bring about school improvement; and…

Reflects on the past three decades of increasing specialization and on the diverse conceptual frameworks guiding research in the field of educational administration. Describes heterogeneity among researchers, field-based research and policy studies, linkages across specialty areas, and key points of remaining articles. Fifty-three footnotes are…

Discusses problems of researchers conducting studies in situations where they are also employed. Focuses on role-switching as a practical research tactic and describes related experiences of the author (a researcher and college and administrator) with Black students at the University of Pennsylvania. (KH)

A Lewinian orientation to educational problems fits current innovative thinking in education (e.g., models for making education multicultural), and provides the bases of important applied work on cooperative learning techniques and constructive ways of structuring conflict within educational settings. Lewinian field theory provides a broad…

Contends that qualitative research is now an acceptable and respected methodology in the various fields of educational research. Concludes that considerable imagination and flexibility is necessary when evaluating research into educational issues in developing nations. (CFR)