An impediment to conducting high-quality quantitative research studies in education is the paucity of valid measures of learning gains. Studies often seek to investigate students' deep, conceptual understanding yet many measures assess only surface, procedural understanding. One reason is that the development of validated measures of conceptual…

A modification of the first stage of the standard procedure for two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling for use with large complex datasets is presented. This modification addresses two common problems that arise in such meta-analyses: (a) primary studies that provide multiple measures of the same construct and (b) the correlation…

Since its inception in the 1980s, the meta-ethnography approach for synthesising qualitative study accounts has been used extensively in health and social care research and to a lesser extent in educational research. The aim of this article is to reflect on the evolution of the method in both fields. It starts by describing the meta-ethnography…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which was established under the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. It is an important part of IES's strategy to use rigorous and relevant research, evaluation, and statistics to improve the nation's education system.…

Background: The prevalence of obesity among individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is equal to or greater than the general population. Methods: Overweight/obese adults (BMI =25 kg/m2) with mild-to-moderate intellectual and developmental disabilities were randomized to an enhanced stop light diet…

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to determine the efficacy of "U-Pace" instruction for older undergraduates, ages 25 and older, and younger undergraduates, ages 18 to 24. Additionally, change in learner perceptions across the semester, an outcome not reported in the literature on "U-Pace" instruction, was…

Inferring causal effects of treatments is a central goal in many disciplines. The potential outcomes framework is a main statistical approach to causal inference, in which a causal effect is defined as a comparison of the potential outcomes of the same units under different treatment conditions. Because for each unit at most one of the potential…

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether off-task multitasking activities with mobile technologies, specifically social networking sites and short messaging services, used during real-time lectures have an effect on grade performance in higher education students. Two experimental groups and one control group were used in this research.…

Poor academic performance from extensive social media usage appears to be due to students' inability to multitask between distractions and academic work. However, the degree to which visually distracted students can acquire lecture information presented aurally is unknown. This study examined the ability of students visually distracted by social…

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effects of water-based aerobic training on the lipid profile and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) levels in premenopausal women with dyslipidemia. Method: Forty women were randomly assigned to: aquatic training (WA; n = 20) or a control group (CG; n = 20). The WA group underwent 12 weeks of water-based interval…

State child support programs secure financial support for children whose parents live apart. These programs establish paternity, set orders for the amounts parents are required to pay, and collect and distribute payments. An essential step in the process of establishing paternity and setting an order of support is delivering legal documents to the…

We explore the conditions under which short, comparative interrupted time-series (CITS) designs represent valid alternatives to randomized experiments in educational evaluations. To do so, we conduct three within-study comparisons, each of which uses a unique data set to test the validity of the CITS design by comparing its causal estimates to…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss the current state of interventions for improving working memory (WM) capacity language and academic skills and to provide suggestions for speech-language pathologists working with students who have WM capacity limitations. Method: Meta-analyses, systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials,…

Sleep deprivation adversely affects the ability to perform cognitive tasks, but theories range from predicting an overall decline in cognitive functioning because of reduced stability in attentional networks to specific deficits in various cognitive domains or processes. We measured the effects of sleep deprivation on two memory tasks, item…

Cluster randomized trials involving participants nested within intact treatment and control groups are commonly performed in various educational, psychological, and biomedical studies. However, recruiting and retaining intact groups present various practical, financial, and logistical challenges to evaluators and often, cluster randomized trials…