Editor’s Note: The U.S. Department of Education has mandated that future educational programs should be based on scientifically based research. The No Child Left Behind (www.nclb.gov) web site concludes that scientifically based research: Is not subject to fads and fashions. Makes teaching more effective, productive, and efficient. Is less subject to political correctness. (http://www.nclb.gov/next/closing/slide033.html) The […]

The Main Issue: Warrant   The main point of Lederman’s (2003) editorial on the nature of scientific research was that projects like the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) attempt to select and disseminate only information about how we should teach and learn that comes from research based on variations of the scientific […]

Norm Lederman’s (2003) editorial, “What Works: Commentary on the Nature of Scientific Research,” makes the points that different research questions call for different types of methodologies and that the current emphasis on defining “what works” by randomized experiments—while important for making causal inferences about certain interventions—is not “what works” for all research issues. I would […]