Contemporary methods of quantitative data collection and analysis in literacy research

From the editors' introduction: Quantitative methods in educational research have advanced substantially since our days as graduate students when we felt well prepared if we knew how to design and analyze a multifactor study using analysis of variance, when we felt we had specialized knowledge if we knew how to set up a Latin square design, and when we felt we were on the methodological cutting edge if we knew the rudiments of multiple regression. Our research horizons, personally and as a field, have broadened considerably since what in retrospect appear to be deceptively simpler days. Most prominently, the research community has embraced qualitative methods that have substantially broadened research perspectives and introduced new questions and foci for research. However, lost to some degree, perhaps due to the attention given to qualitative methods, has been the increasing range of questions and issues that advances in quantitative methods now permit researchers to examine. With that possibility in mind, we invited a group of eminently qualified researchers with knowledge of quantitative methods to write this New Directions feature…