Purpose: A literature research conducted in education and agricultural education journals published during a period of 10 years revealed that 98% of the studies used parametric analyses. In general, model assumptions were not tested, and statistical criteria were not followed to apply the parametric approach. The objective of this paper is to…

A broad consensus regarding the need for universities to cultivate academic success has emerged because many students do not achieve their goals or optimally benefit from their higher education (HE) experiences (Altbach, 2014; Davidson & Wilson, 2014; Ferrão & Almeida, 2019; Meggiolaro, Giraldo, & Clerici, 2017; Tinto & Pusser,…

Contrary to its typical presentation in scientific publications as a certain and linear process, in reality, the experimental method, not least the design aspect of it, requires a great deal of trial-and-error and ad hoc decision-making on the part of the researchers. This uncertain and contingent aspect of research, although little known outside…

In mixed methods reviewing, data from quantitative and qualitative studies are combined at the review level. One possible way to combine findings of quantitative and qualitative studies is to quantitize qualitative findings prior to their incorporation in a quantitative review. There are only a few examples of the quantification of qualitative…

Students often believe that statistical significance is the only determinant of whether a quantitative result is "important." In this paper, I review traditional null hypothesis statistical testing to identify what questions inferential statistics can and cannot answer, including statistical significance, effect size and direction,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytical framework toward facilitating the quantitative measurement of interdisciplinary understanding regarding sustainable energy systems with an application in the area of capacity-building projects in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: The analytical framework is developed using…

Moderators are variables that affect the relationship between a predictor and outcome. They help to clarify otherwise ambiguous patterns of results, extend theory, and signal the growth of a field. Given the importance of moderators, the authors offer an overview of methodological and statistical considerations for testing moderation and then…

While doctoral leadership programs have widely adopted Improvement Science (IS) as a signature pedagogy, few studies have examined how to best equip doctoral students with the knowledge and research skills they need to utilize IS in practice. More specifically, research is needed to determine the most effective and meaningful pedagogy for…

Research questions regarding how, for whom, and where a treatment achieves its effect on an outcome have become increasingly valued in substantive research. Such questions can be answered by causal moderated mediation analysis, which assesses the heterogeneity of the mediation mechanism underlying the treatment effect across individual and…

This reflective commentary on the character and role of methodology in educational and social inquiry recounts my 45-year journey as an applied researcher and evaluator, primarily in the domain of education. The journey starts in graduate school in the early 1970s, where the methodological challenge was to master "the proper methods, properly…

Undergraduate English majors should have opportunities to conduct meaningful, authentic research. This essay outlines a research methods course that introduces students to empirical research with qualitative and quantitative tools. Over the course of the term, students complete a whole-class project that models the process and then also complete…

This study investigates the trends of doctoral dissertations produced in Türkiye in the field of Educational Technologies. 292 doctoral dissertations were included in this study which was conducted in the design of document analysis in the period between 2011 and 2020. The dissertations were put to content analysis by using the Dissertation…

With the rapid growth of leadership research and the increasing complexity of research methods, preparing doctoral students to do research in leadership studies is becoming more challenging. This article outlines an exploratory research study and presents results of what is currently being done by university PhD leadership programs to prepare…

The debate on determining sample size in qualitative research is confounded by four fundamental methodological issues: the exclusive focus on theme analysis; the diverse and imprecise use of 'qualitative'; a reliance on only two logics of inquiry, "induction" and "deduction," and the occasional confusion of…

Lord's Paradox occurs when a continuous covariate is statistically controlled for and the relationship between a continuous outcome and group status indicator changes in both magnitude and direction. This phenomenon poses a challenge to the notion of evidence-based policy, where data are supposed to be self-evident. We examined 50 effect size…