"Methodologist" is more than a title. It is a professional identity. In this project, we three doctoral students in different stages of our training in educational research, measurement, and evaluation examine our liminality and the process of becoming methodologists through the discussion of methodological expertise, quality in…

This paper argues that there are no generic methods in academic research that can be categorized in terms like quantitative or qualitative. Each different area of research uses a distinctive combination of methods, theories, and tools in which these methods, theories, and tools have been customized to work together. Grouping every area that uses…

Methodologist. Methodologist. Methodologist. Methodologist. Saying a word enough times in rapid-fire succession can make it lose its meaning. Your focus shifts from understanding of the word and its multiple signifiers, to the sounds you make when you say it, the movement of your lips and the shape of your mouth, the touch of your tongue on your…

David Berliner argued in 2002 that educational research is the hardest science of all. His arguments addressed the complexity that context plays in educational settings and the difficulties of applying research designs that were largely developed and refined in the natural sciences arena to fields of human behavior. In this article, it is argued…

In this position article, we explore what happens when school district policies regarding desegregation, accountability, and foreign language immersion education collide. Specifically, we contrast 2 immersion programs that experienced distinct outcomes as a result of the conflicting agendas underlying these 3 policies. One program, originally…

This article reviews research on English language arts teachers' use of digital tools in the classroom to remediate print literacies. Specifically, this review focuses on the affordances of digital tools to foster uses of digital literacies of informational/accessibility, collaboration knowledge construction, multimodal communication, gaming…

In this article, the authors present a call to advocacy for an underserved population. Twice-exceptional students are an important sub-population that has historically been neglected. We examine the historical context of twice-exceptionality and evaluate the relevance of current ethical codes with regard to these students. We also review some of…

We address 2 key points of contention in this article. First, we engage the debate concerning whether particular methods are necessarily linked to particular research paradigms. Second, we briefly describe a mixed methods version of grounded theory (MM-GT). Grounded theory can be tailored to work well in any of the 3 major forms of mixed methods…

Self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety have been identified as predictors of mathematics achievement. In the present study, secondary analyses on matrix summaries available from prior published studies were utilized to investigate the contribution that self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety made in mathematics performance. Commonality analyses were…

This study was conducted with 53 beginning teachers, each with less than 3 years of classroom experience, to determine the amount of variance in their job satisfaction that could be accounted for by holistic wellness and perceived stress. The results of a regression analysis revealed that both holistic wellness and perceived stress were…

One leading version of hope theory posits hope to be a general disposition for goal-directed agency and pathways thinking. Domain-specific hope theory suggests that hope operates within context and measures of hope should reflect that context. This study examined three measures of hope to test the predictive, construct, and convergent validity…

The impact of the accountability system on perceptions and practices of elementary teachers in South Texas was examined. A mixed methods approach was utilized in this descriptive study. Participants were randomly selected and included 192 educators from 12 campuses, from various districts. Teachers stated that they experienced a great deal of…

Acquiring knowledge with comprehension has been the stated goal of education at least since the publication of the Bloom Cognitive Taxonomy, even though progress in research and practice has not kept up with the theory. In this article, we explain the slow rate of progress in education for understanding and argue that the taxonomic approach…

Class-size reduction (CSR) initiatives have demonstrated positive short- and long-term effects in elementary grades. Less is known about CSR influence on achievement in middle grades. Thus, we conducted a non-experimental, longitudinal, explanatory study of CSR influence on writing achievement of 3 independent cohorts of students (n = 123) in…

A survey of 442 beginning teachers, 57 mentors, and 33 administrators asked participants to rate the support provided to first-year teachers. Respondents identified persons who provided the most support, and responses were compared. Generally, new teachers indicated that administrators and other teachers had been more helpful than were mentors. In…