Reshaping the Methodological Identity of Education Research

The purpose of the present article is to assess the impact that recent federal policies have had on education research. Using published journal articles as a data source, the study examines reports on the frequency of use for terms representing federal priorities for education research (experimental, randomization, hypothesis, and quantitative) compared to the frequency of use for terms representing methodologies that are granted a lower priority within federal policy (ethnographic, narrative, postmodern, and qualitative). A comparison between the data for 2001 (pre-policy period) and data for 2005 (policy enactment period) shows increased use of all four terms representing federal priorities, whereas three of the four terms representing nonexperimental research are associated with decreased numbers of articles. Some of the ways in which the findings may be interpreted are discussed and additional analyses that may be conducted to help track the impact of federal policy on education research are described.