Designing High-Quality Research in Special Education

Abstract

This article discusses critical issues related to conducting high-quality intervention research using experimental and quasi-experimental group designs. As researchers have learned more about teaching and learning, intervention studies have become more complex. The research community is struggling with ways to sensibly negotiate a balance between rigorous research designs that satisfy traditional laboratory standards of quality and interventions that are complex and flexible enough for conducting research in the real world of classrooms and schools. Rather than organizing the discussion around a list of resolute research standards, we weigh the pros and cons of making the many difficult choices involved in conducting intervention research. Our goal is to convey the sense that good designs must involve a series of balances and compromises that defy easily categorized solutions. Among the controversial areas discussed are the importance of defining the nature of the independent variable, the value of measuring implementation, and the improvement of the quality of quasi-experiments.

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