Quality Indicators for Group Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research in Special Education‪.‬

This article presents a set of quality indicators for experimental and quasi-experimental studies for the field of special education. We believe there is a critical need for such a set of indicators, given the current focus on the need for an increase in rigorous, scientific research in education. Recently, the National Research Council (NRC, 2002), in a report on scientific research in education, noted that they saw no reason why education could not be subject to the same scientific methods as other disciplines such as chemistry or physics. They further argued that there is a place for all research methodologies in educational research: survey research, qualitative research, and correlational research. As Feuer, Towne, and Shavelson (2002) noted, "If a research conjecture or hypothesis can withstand scrutiny by multiple methods, its credibility is enhanced greatly. Overzealous adherence to the use of any given research design flies in the face of this fundamental principle" (p. 8). Yet the NRC report is unequivocal in stating numerous times that experiments using randomized trials are currently underutilized in educational research, despite being "the single best methodological route to ferreting out systematic relations between actions and outcome" (Feuer et al., 2002, p. 8). In that sense, they reiterate a point made over a generation ago by Campbell and Stanley (1966), who highlighted that controlled experimental research conducted in field settings was