The Sage Handbook for Research in Education

Clifton F. Conrad has been Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1987. He previously taught at the University of Denver (1975-1977), The College of William and Mary (1977-1981), and the University of Arizona (1981-1987)-where he also served as a Department Chair and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. His research program is centered on college and university curriculum-at the undergraduate and graduate levels, in the liberal arts and sciences as well as in professional fields. Books that he has authored or co-authored include The Undergraduate Curriculum, A Silent Success: Master's Education in the United States, and Emblems of Quality in Higher Education: Developing and Sustaining High-Quality Programs. While he has published quantitative studies in journals such as the American Educational Research Journal and the Journal of Education Finance, the majority of his research has been fueled by qualitative approaches to inquiry-work that appears in journals ranging from Sociology of Education to the Journal of Higher Education. A former President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, since 1980 he has been a key expert witness and consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of Civil Rights (U.S. Department of Education) in major civil rights cases and inquiries involving race and gender in higher education in nine states. Two of these cases led to landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, including one in which his scholarship was cited approvingly. Ronald C. Serlin is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches courses in nonparametric statistics and the philosophy of science and statistics. His mastery in teaching earned him a Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award early in his career. His expertise as a statistical consultant has led to long and fruitful collaborative efforts with colleagues in the School of Nursing and the Departments of Neurology, Art Education, and Journalism & Mass Communication, among others. Currently, he is engaged in two major lines of research. One examines the effects of violations of assumptions on known and proposed parametric and nonparametric tests, a knowledge of which helps to increase the validity of statistical conclusions. The other investigates the philosophical underpinnings of statistical hypothesis testing, an effort linking modern philosophy of science and statistical practice to delineate the role of statistics in the scientific endeavor. He has published regularly in Psychological Bulletin and Psychological Methods and in such wide-ranging journals as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of Research in Music Education, and Pain. An article he co-authored won the Annual Research Report award competition for Division D of the American Educational Research Association. He won an award for Outstanding Contributions to Nursing Education, and recently he won a School of Education Distinguished Achievement Award. He served three nonconcurrent terms as Department Chair.

The SAGE Handbook for Research in Education stimulates and encourages students, faculty, and educational practitioners, including individuals in education, government, and the private sector who conduct applied and policy-oriented educational research, to place the pursuit of ideas at the epicentre of their research-from framing meaningful problems to identifying and addressing key challenges to the reporting and dissemination of their findings.

PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroductionPart One. Exploring Ideas: Embracing Inquiry and the Craft of Framing Meaningful Problems Section I: Exploring the Multiple Purposes of Inquiry and Key Stakeholders - D.C. PhillipsChapter 1: Muddying the Waters Even More: The Many Faces of Empirical Educational Inquiry - D.C. PhillipsChapter 2. Speaking Truth to Policy and Practice - Robert E. FlodenChapter 3. Minding the Gap Between Research and Policy Making - David N. Plank Section II: Formulating Meaningful Problems - Daniel K. LapsleyChapter 4. Developing and Framing Meaningful Problems - Daniel K. LapsleyChapter 5. Inquiry Through a Keyhole: Retroduction - Ronald C. SerlinChapter 6. Reviewing Literature and Formulating Problems - Carolyn KelleyChapter 7. The Challenge of Framing a Problem: What is Your Burning Question? - Susan HarterChapter 8. Developing and Nurturing Interesting and Researchable Ideas - Kathryn R. WentzelChapter 9. Situating Ourselves and Our Inquiry: A First-Person Account - James YounissPart Two. Pursuing and Sharing Ideas: The Design and Conduct of Inquiry and the Communication of Results Section III: Opportunities and Challenges in Designing and Conducting Inquiry - Ronald C. SerlinChapter 10. Research Design in Qualitative/Quantitative/Mixed Methods - Michael R. HarwellChapter 11. Intellect, Light, and Shadow in Research Design - John P. BeanChapter 12. Comparative Education: An Approach to Educational Inquiry - David PhillipsChapter 13. Conceptualizing and Conducting Meaningful Research Studies in Education - Ronald H. HeckChapter 14. Constructing Data - Kadriye Ercikan and Wolff-Michael RothChapter 15. Constructing Analyses: The Development of Thoughtfulness in Working With Quantitative Methods - Michael Seltzer and Mike RoseChapter 16. Approaching Rigor in Applied Qualitative Research - J. Douglas TomaChapter 17. Constructing Conclusions - King D Beach, III, Betsy Jane Becker, and Mary M. KennedyChapter 18. Windows of Possibility: Perspectives on the Construction of Educational Researchers - Anna Neumann and Aaron M. PallasChapter 19. Education as Design for Learning: A Model for Integrating Education Inquiry Across Research Traditions - Richard Halverson and Erica Rosenfeld Halverson Section IV: Writing, Voicing, and Disseminating Research - Elizabeth GraueChapter 20. Cultivating Idea-Centric Writing in Our Teaching of Writing - Laura A. Dunek and Clifton F. ConradChapter 21. Writing in Education Research - Elizabeth GraueChapter 22: Experimenting With Voice and Reflexivity to Produce Multi-Voiced Texts - Elizabeth G. CreamerChapter 23. Getting the Word Out: Challenges and Opportunities in Explaining Educational Research to the World - Gerald W. BraceyPart Three. Engaging Ideas: Reflections of Scholars Section V: Reflections on Critical Incidents in Exemplary Inquiry - Elfrieda H. HiebertChapter 24. Using Historical Methods to Explore Educational Questions - Marybeth GasmanChapter 25. Texts for Beginning Readers: The Search for Optimal Scaffolds - Elfrieda H. HiebertChapter 26. Conducting Research on Leadership and Change in Education - Karen Seashore LouisChapter 27. College Access and Educational Research: Persistent Problems and New Perspectives - Ryan Evely Gildersleeve and Patricia M. McDonoughChapter 28. The Arc of Research - William G. TierneyIndexAbout the EditorsAbout the Section EditorsAbout the Contributors