This case study provides an account of my experiences and lessons learned in designing and implementing a survey research. The research was part of my doctoral thesis in educational measurement and quantitative methods. The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of a Completely Structured Training compared with Partially Structured…

Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are used in educational research to establish causality and develop effective practices. These research designs rely on a counterfactual model that, in simple form, calls for a comparison between a treatment group and a control group. Developers of educational practices often assume that the population…

The strong differences in manifestation, prevalence, and incidence in dyslexia across languages invite studies in specific writing systems. In particular, the question of the role played by emergent literacy in opaque and transparent writing systems remains a fraught one. This research project tested, through a 4-year prospective cohort study, an…

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), is collecting information about the early educational experiences of a nationally representative sample of children who were in kindergarten or who were of kindergarten age in ungraded classrooms or schools in the 2010-11 school year. The data collection began in…

Issues and elements of case study research are explored and illustrated with the example of a case study of a kindergarten in a suburb of Tokyo (Japan). Case study research is a type of qualitative research that concentrates on a single unit or entity, with boundaries established by the researcher. The case is an example drawn from a larger class,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a sequenced, highly-structured direct instruction program in language and reading skills on the intellectual growth, academic achievement, and school adjustment of 303 middle class kindergarten children. Children were assigned to one of four treatment groups: a "direct verbal"…