Methodological Options and their Implications: An Example Using Secondary Data to Analyze Latino Educational Expectations

A number of studies over decades have examined determinants of educational expectations. However, even among the subset of quantitative studies, there is considerable variation in the methods used to operationally define and analyze expectations. Using a systematic literature review and several regression methods to analyze Latino students’ educational expectations, this study presents significantly different results based on important, but often overlooked, methodological choices. Broad implications of these findings are discussed for individual higher education research projects, for a body of literature as a whole, and for multiple stakeholders in various phases of the research process.

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