AERA Stresses Value of Alternatives to 'Gold Standard'
Experiment not only route to solid findings, panel says.
At a time when federal education officials are holding up scientific experiments as a gold standard for studies in the field, a report by the nation’s largest education research group suggests there are also other methods that are nearly as good for answering questions about what works in schools.
The report, produced by a committee of scholars of the Washington-based American Educational Research Association, was released April 11 at the group’s 88th annual meeting here. It highlights ways in which researchers can use large-scale data sets, such as those maintained by the U.S. Department of Education, for analyzing cause-and-effect questions in education.
“It’s not a question of either-or,” said Barbara Schneider, the chair of the committee and a professor of educational administration and sociology at Michigan State University in East Lansing. “It’s about the importance of building capacity in our field. We need researchers who can use a variety of methods to...
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