The title of this report reveals its purpose precisely: to spur actions that will advance scientific research in education. The recommendations for accomplishing this goal, detailed in this report, build on the National Research Council (NRC) report "Scientific Research in Education" (National Research Council, 2002). That report offers…

Examines nursing's changing research practices. Discusses changes in the philosophy of science, dichotomies within nursing, and nursing's changing research tradition. Concludes that a new research tradition can provide nursing with the scientific and social freedom and openness to solve both conceptual and empirical problems. (CT)

Considers methodological issues that arise when values form the main focus of empirical educational research. Includes discussion of the idea that social science, in general, and educational research, in particular, are forms of moral inquiry. Outlines a methodology of educational research, drawing from work by Imre Lakatos, Alasdair MacIntyre,…

The National Research Council report, "Scientific Research in Education," claims to present an inclusive view of sciences in responding to federal attempts to legislate educational research. This article asserts that it narrowly defines science as positivism and methodology as quantitative, rejecting postmodernism and omitting other theories. Uses…

Replies to several authors who critiqued an article on scientific culture and educational research, reiterating the original article's core argument that harnessing the epistemological and methodological diversity of the field to advance its common goals is difficult but essential work. Encourages further debate on the issues addressed in the…

Much vocational education research has been guided by a positivistic paradigm, although the latter has several serious problems. An alternative, postpositivism, challenges the objectivity of empirical facts, posits the underdetermination of theory by logic and experience, and rejects the distinction between facts and values. (SK)

Offers two reasons for keeping educational research firmly within the domain of science: to maintain self-correcting progress for educational theory and to maintain the reputation of educational research as a scientific enterprise. Suggests that a possible reconciliation to the two sides on this issue is to use quantitative and qualitative data in…

A "fact sheet" is defined as a single two-sided sheet (or one-page folded brochure) that briefly describes all major aspects of a scientific survey or poll in nontechnical terms. A fact sheet can be used to plan all phases of a survey, from clarifying purpose, to distributing results. A fact sheet may be used as a communication tool in…

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…

One of the most important topics on the international agenda in educational research is to gain an understanding of the processes of educational change in teachers and of the factors that favour or hinder it. Such understanding is, for instance, an essential element in planning and putting into practice initial and ongoing teacher education…

The development of institutional research through the past two decades is reviewed briefly and its future outlook discussed, including efforts of researchers to communicate their findings. (LBH)

Surveys 5,000 years of artworks, encompassing 1,180 scorable instances of unimanual tool or weapon usage. No systematic trends in hand usage were revealed. Right hand use averaged 93 percent of all cases regardless of which historical era or geographic region was assessed. (SL)

Author qualifies the traditional definition of research and the approach to research. (RK)