The increasingly diverse backgrounds of today's graduate students have resulted in a wide range of ideas about what graduate school actually entails and what is expected of the students. Therefore, a graduate course titled "Theory and Methods of Research" was developed and is required for all chemical engineering graduate students at…

This paper presents a possible methodology for measuring and predicting the future course of the long-range economic benefits of "curiosity-oriented" research. The basic premise is that much pure research tends to give rise to major industries in about one generation. Each industry will have some total economic benefit which can be…

X-ray emitting bodies orbiting stars have been located. Research on black holes has brought out many characteristics of these X-ray emitting bodies. (PS)

Analysis of the Journal of the American Association of Teacher Educators in Agriculture in 1986 and 1987 revealed that 84 percent of the articles were quantitative and 13 percent qualitative research. The positivistic approach dominates. However, other valid approaches are interpretive research and critical science, based on critical social…

The accelerating pace of the creation of knowledge is increasing the value of research skills and the metaskill of knowledge integration. Education and training should focus less on delivering content and more on helping people learn to find out for themselves. (SK)

A new view of science that goes beyond conventional perceptions of science as either good or bad is proposed. The new perspective sees science as process rather than product, bringing together scientific skills and human insight. It is seen as important for the public to understand that expert disagreement is part of the scientific enterprise.…

Describes a project where students were given a small but real scientific question and allowed to deal with all aspects of the project just as a professional scientist would, rather than work on the science part only. (JRH)

In this response to Scientific Research in Education (National Research Council, 2002), I argue that the report has provided us with a carefully considered but partial vision of social science that limits the capacity of our field to engage in critical self-reflection. As one counterexample to the vision of social science portrayed in the report,…

Discusses criticisms of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), suggesting that historical use of NHST was reasonable, and current users should read Sir Ronald Fisher's applied work. Notes that modifications to NHST and interpretations of its outcomes might better suit the needs of modern science. Concludes that NHST is most often useful as…

More school nurses are engaging in the generation of research, and their studies increasingly are using qualitative methods to describe various areas of practice. This article provides an overview of 4 major qualitative methods: ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory, and historical research. Examples of school nursing research studies that…

Peer-reviewed literature is the single most important forum in which research findings are presented for critical review. College biology students can benefit a great deal from early exposure to this resource, but insufficient background information, technical jargon, and complex statistical analyses often present considerable obstacles to…

The demand for evidence-based research (EBR) in education has evoked considerable debate regarding the nature of knowledge practitioners hold, how they come to know, and the sociopolitical contexts in which that knowledge is generated. Proponents of EBR such as Michael Feuer stress the need for research that validly identifies solutions to…

Misconstruing the meaning of Cronbach's alpha, experts on facial attractiveness have conveyed the impression that facial-attractiveness judgment standards are largely shared. This claim is unsubstantiated, because information necessary for deciding whether judgments of facial attractiveness are more influenced by commonly shared or by privately…

This discussion of the place of research in the field of library science notes empirical and scientific research; testing, analysis, and research design; theories and methodologies from other disciplines; the dilemma of quantification; library research needs; and the search for an audience. Twenty-six references are cited. (EJS)

Explains how the higher education system fulfilled targets of the Ninth Five-Year Plan in science ahead of schedule. This was achieved through improvement in organization of scientific research, application of progressive research methods, and increased effectiveness of scholars' labor. (Author/AV)