Methods Matter: Improving Causal Inference in Educational and Social Science Research

1 The Challenge for Educational Research 1.1 The Long Quest 1.2 The Quest is World-Wide 1.3 What this Book is About 1.4 What to Read Next 2 The Importance of Theory 2.1 What is Theory? 2.2 Theory in Education 2.3 Voucher Theory 2.4 What Kind of Theories? 2.5 What to Read Next 3 Designing Research to Address Causal Questions 3.1 Conditions to Strive for in All Research 3.2 Making Causal Inferences 3.3 Past Approaches To Answering Causal Questions in Education 3.4 The Key Challenge of Causal Research 3.5 What to Read Next 4 Investigator-Designed Randomized Experiments 4.1 Conducting Randomized Experiments 4.1.1 An Example of a Two-Group Experiment 4.2 Analyzing Data from Randomized Experiments 4.2.1 Better Your…