How to interact with differences in special education intervention research: six guidelines

This article is predicated on the idea that, by interacting with differences of various kinds, researchers in special education can obtain conclusions that are more nuanced, sophisticated, richer, and, hence, better than when they would have ignored such differences. Based on the application of existing research guidelines to 6 recent exemplars of special education intervention research, 6 revised mixed methods guidelines are formulated and discussed. These involve including differences and diversity in research design, including differential views of different stakeholders, investigating differential effects of different elements of interventions, further exploration of differences and exceptions encountered during research, and incorporation of any differences encountered in the conclusions. We conclude by noting that without such diversification, the resulting conclusions will not be as helpful as they might otherwise be with respect to supporting practice.